There were sleepless nights as we considered whether this was the right move for not just me, but for the family. Our daughter had just started a new school. She was in seventh grade and we had to think about her. My husband and I met in New Haven. New Haven was our home. And Yale and New Haven are intertwined in a way that makes them a wonderfully, I wouldn't say comfortable, but interesting and humane community. We didn't know if we'd be able to find our way into a community of any sort if we moved to Cambridge and moved to Cambridge as MIT's President and her family. So, these were very great concerns. Of course, I didn't really have much of a concern that my husband would find a place to work. He's a neurologist, a clinical neurologist when I have to... So, when my appointment was announced, the first email I received, the very first email I received was from the Chair of Neurology, at Mass General Hospital. Very brief, good friend of mine she said, “Can Tom come to work with us?” So that was a problem solved. And then subsequently, the problem of finding a good school for Elizabeth really occupied so much of Tom's attention and my own attention also because we wanted that to work too, we made the decision while she was at summer camp and when we picked her up, the first thing she said was, "Don't tell me we're moving to Boston."

She had a fabulous time at summer camp and was loving her new school. And we said, yes, sorry to say we are. And that I think was probably emotionally and also intellectually the hardest part of the transition. But it was a part that I could not share with anyone outside our family.

Susan Hockfield is a neuroscientist whose research focuses on brain development and glioma, pioneering the use of monoclonal antibody technology demonstrating that early experience results in lasting changes in the molecular structure of the brain. She is a Professor of Neuroscience and President Emerita at MIT. She was the first woman and life scientist to serve as MIT’s sixteenth president from 2004-2012.

Hockfield earned her B.A. in biology from the University of Rochester (1973) and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University at the School of Medicine (1979). In 1980, Hockfield completed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at San Francisco. She then joined the scientific staff at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York where she ran her own lab for five years. She also served as director of the Summer Neurobiology Program from 1985 to 1997. In 1985, Hockfield became the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology at Yale University. She went on to serve as the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 1998-2002, and Provost from 2003-2004.

In December 2004, Hockfield assumed office as the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She held this role until June 2012 and continues to hold a faculty appointment as professor of neuroscience and as a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

Hockfield has received numerous awards including the Charles Judson Herrick Award from the American Association of Anatomists, the Wilbur Lucius Cross Award from the Yale University Graduate School, the Meliora Citation from the University of Rochester, the Amelia Earhart Award from the Women’s Union, and the Yale Science and Engineering Association 2021 Award for Distinguished Service to Industry, Commerce or Education.

She also holds honorary degrees from Brown University, Duke University, Georgetown University, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York University, Northeastern University, Tsinghua University (Beijing), Université Pierre et Marie Curie, University of Edinburgh, University of Massachusetts Medical School, University of Rochester, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory School of Biological Sciences.