A couple of thoughts on the changing ethos, we'll call it, among colleagues. The first is that the more I've learned about what goes on, and I have to tell you if it doesn't happen to you directly, it's hard to know about it because it becomes a secret. The more grateful I am for my graduate advisor. There was no ambiguity, there was never any ambiguity. The question never came up and I just kind of lived it. But in retrospect, what a gift. What a gift to be treated fairly. What a gift not to be imposed upon, not to be invaded in its psychological way. So, I think the first answer is being a woman president immediately changes the game, to some degree. It doesn't solve serious problems, but it changes the game.

Another is making sure people understand that the stuff just isn't going to escape if it comes up. So, I worry a very small amount actually comes to the surface and we have a very serious problem. Is that what was okay, either officially or clandestinely, okay, we now say is not okay. And how do we transition to that? How do we change the morays of our communities? I don't have a silver bullet for this, but I think part of it is having men who actually understand the complexity because a lot of men don't, a lot of men don't.

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.