I'll share with you one of the, what I call the trials of Hercules. In my first year, at least once a month, there was some enormously difficult problem that landed on my desk, and the first of those was actually sitting on the desk the first day I walked in.

So the office had its furniture and everything, but it was empty. The books were gone, but there was a letter on the desk and the letter was from a faculty member alleging or suggesting, not suggesting, alleging that there had been scientific misconduct in one of the places where MIT had oversight. So, MIT has oversight over the Lincoln Laboratories, which is one of the most important laboratories for the defense activities of the United States. It's enormously well known, enormously productive, enormously respected. Much of the work that goes on at the Lincoln Laboratories is in the classified domain. And this faculty member was making an accusation of scientific misconduct in the classified domain at Lincoln Labs, so this was my first really serious issue that I had to deal with. And because of the connection between MIT and the federal government, the route to solving it involved my meeting with Andy Card, who was Chief of Staff for [President] Bush. I just remember the meeting vividly. I think it happened in, I started in December, so I think I was in his office in February. I should probably look it up on my calendar to feel how, when it was, I mean, I had been president for two minutes and explaining to Mr. Card the critical importance of having the assistance of the government in resolving this issue, the importance for the integrity and the success of Americans' military program. So that was a new experience.

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.