Steve Hall New Faculty Chair

Newsletter Staff

Steve Hall

Steven R. Hall, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, will become Chair of the Faculty on July 1, 2013 after serving as chair-elect for the past year. Steve has been apprenticing this year under the welcoming mentoring of the current Chair, Sam Allen. Joining Steve as faculty officers this summer will be John Belcher (Associate Chair) and Susan Silbey (Secretary).

Steve grew up in Florida, living in a half dozen towns throughout the central part of the state before graduating from high school in St. Petersburg. Living in Florida at the height of the space race, he developed an interest in aircraft and rockets early in life. He graduated from MIT with an SB degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1980, and earned SM and ScD degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1982 and 1985, also from MIT. He was appointed to the MIT faculty in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1985, and was named a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow in 2002. He was a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Michigan from 1992–93.

Steve’s research interests have been in aerospace controls systems, including flexible space structure control, control of noise and vibration, especially in helicopters, and the development of smart material actuators. He is the coauthor of seven patents, mostly in the area of smart material actuation, but also one in washing machine design.

His teaching includes graduate and undergraduate subjects within the Information Sector of the department, including a dozen years teaching Signals and Systems in the famous (or infamous) Unified Engineering. He has also taught undergraduate subjects in control theory, guidance and navigation, and flight mechanics and control. His graduate teaching includes subjects in modern control theory and optimal control.

Steve has been active in service in his home department and the Institute. In his department, he’s served as an undergraduate advisor, Assistant Department Head, Chair of the departmental faculty search committee, Chair of the doctoral program, and Co-Head of the Information Sector. In service to the Institute, he has been a freshman advisor, a member and later Chair of the Committee on the Undergraduate Program, a member and then Chair of the CUP Subcommittee on the Communication Requirement, a member of the MIT Corporation Joint Advisory Committee on Institute-Wide Affairs (CJAC), and a member of the Institute-Wide Planning Task Force.

Steve is currently the Associate Housemaster of Simmons Hall, where he runs the Simmons Hall Residential Scholar program. He greatly enjoys living with the Simmons Hall community of students and scholars, which he describes as “warm, welcoming, and vibrant.” His daughter Caitlin lives with him at Simmons Hall and is a graduate student at Emerson College. His son Michael lives in nearby Watertown. Steve is a certificated pilot, and enjoys flying his plane on weekends and on vacations.

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