Daniel Blankschtein is professor of chemical engineering at MIT. He received a PhD in condensed-matter physics from Tel Aviv University and then spent four years at MIT’s Department of Physics (first as a Chaim Weizmann Postdoctoral Fellow and then as a Bantrell Postdoctoral Fellow), conducting research on theoretical and experimental aspects of self-assembling macromolecular fluids.

He has published more than 140 research articles on macromolecular fluids, bioseparations, transdermal drug delivery, and industrial and biomedical applications of colloid and interface science. Blankschtein is the recipient of a Presidential Young Investigator Award, the 1996 Ebert Prize from the American Pharmaceutical Association and the 2000 Dow Corning Award from the Controlled Release Society. He serves as advisory editor of the Marcel Dekker Surfactant Science Series.

Bob Cohen studied at Cornell (BS), Caltech (MS and PhD) and Oxford (postdoc) before joining the MIT faculty in 1973. He is the founding director of MIT’s Program in Polymer Science and Technology and the architect of MIT’s unique doctoral program in chemical engineering practice.

Currently, he is the St. Laurent Professor of Chemical Engineering. He has been a director of the DuPont MIT Alliance since its inception in 2000. His publications reflect interests in polymer structure-property relations. On the basis of patents produced in his laboratory, he cofounded MatTek Corporation (www.mattek.com) in 1985. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering, the American Physical Society and the Materials Research Society. In 2010 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Cohen and his wife, Jane, live in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston. They have two children: Genevieve, a kindergarten teacher in San Diego, and Eliot who works in information technology in Boston.

Christopher “Kit” Colin Cummins benefited from formative undergraduate research experiences in the laboratories of Professors Susan E. Kegley, James P. Collman and Peter T. Wolczanski, of Middlebury College, Stanford University and Cornell University, respectively.

He graduated from the latter institution with an AB in 1989. He then undertook graduate studies in inorganic chemistry under the direction of Professor Richard R. Schrock at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he obtained his PhD in 1993 with a thesis titled Synthetic Investigations Featuring Amidometallic Complexes. Also in 1993, he joined the chemistry faculty at MIT as an assistant professor, and in 1996 he was promoted to his current rank of professor.

Danheiser joined the MIT faculty in 1978 and at present is the Arthur C. Cope Professor of Chemistry.

Current investigations in his laboratory involve the development of new strategies for the synthesis of complex molecules and their application in the total synthesis of natural products and biologically active compounds. Danheiser is the editor-in-chief of Organic Syntheses and serves on the editorial boards of several other journals.

Danheiser has a special interest in laboratory safety and serves as the chair of the Department of Chemistry's Environmental Health and Safety Committee and as chair of the MIT Committee on Toxic Chemicals. Danheiser has also served on the National Research Council Committee on Prudent Practices for the Handling, Storage and Disposal of Chemicals in Laboratories and chaired the Subcommittee on Assessing Chemical Hazards.

Robert Field was born June 13, 1944, in Wilmington, Del., the first of two children of Kay and Edmund Field. He attended Amherst College, where he majored in Chemistry (AB, magna cum laude, 1965; Doctor of Science honoris causas, 1997). He obtained his graduate education at Harvard University where, supervised by William A. Klemperer, he gained his initial experience with multiple resonance spectroscopies and spectroscopic perturbations (PhD and MA, 1972).

As a postdoc with professors H.P. Broida and D.O. Harris at UCSB (1971 to 1974), he performed the first microwave-optical and optical-optical double resonance studies of diatomic molecules using tunable lasers and showed that spectroscopic perturbations can provide global insights into the electronic structure of the alkaline earth monoxides. Upon joining the MIT chemistry faculty in 1974 (assistant professor, 1974-1978; associate professor, 1978-1982; professor, 1982-1999; Haslam and Dewey Professor of Chemistry, 1999-present) he continued to develop new laser spectroscopic techniques including cw optically pumped molecular electronic lasers, modulated gain spectroscopy, and Stimulated Emission Pumping.

He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (1981), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2002), the Optical Society of America (1994) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (2009). He has been awarded the Herbert P. Broida Prize in 1980, the Earle K. Plyler Prize in 1988, the Ellis Lippincott Award in 1990, the William F. Meggers Award in 1996, the Bomem-Michelson Award in 2006, and the Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science in 2009.  In addition, the 1990 Nobel Laureate Signature Award of the American Chemical Society cites Yongqin Chen and his copreceptors (professors Field and Kinsey) for SEP studies of acetylene.

Field has co-authored two monographs: Perturbations in the Spectra of Diatomic Molecules (1986) and The Spectra and Dynamics of Diatomic Molecules (2004), and has co-edited monographs titled Molecular Dynamics and Spectroscopy by Stimulated Emission Pumping (1995) and Nonlinear Spectroscopy for Molecular Structure Determination (1998). He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy (1976-present), Journal of Physical Chemistry (1980-1984), Journal of Chemical Physics (1986-1988), Chemical Physics Letters (1993-1995), and Annual Review of Physical Chemistry (1994-1999). 

Frederick Frey has done geochemical research on the three general types of volcanoes on earth: mid-ocean ridges, whose submarine volcanoes form at diverging plate boundaries; arc volcanoes, such as the U.S. Cascades and Aleutian Islands, which form at converging plate boundaries; and hot-spot volcanoes, such as the Hawaiian and Galapagos Islands, whose location is not controlled by plate boundaries. Some volcanic islands are more complex. Iceland is a hot-spot volcano formed at the diverging boundary of the North American and European plates.

Frey frequently accompanies MIT Alumni Travel Groups that visit volcanic regions such as Hawaii, Galapagos, and Iceland. On these trips, he is both an MIT faculty representative and a volcano expert.

Robert G. Griffin was born and raised in Little Rock, Ark., graduating in 1960 from Hall High School in Little Rock. He attended Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., during his freshman year of college but then transferred to the University of Arkansas, where he majored in chemistry and received a BS (with honors) in 1964. During high school and college, he had two consuming interests: chemistry and rock music. Specifically, while he performed research in the chemistry department, he was a drummer with a band known as the Rebels, which played weekly around Arkansas. During his latter years of college, it became apparent that his dreams of becoming a rock star would likely not come to fruition.

In 1963, he therefore retired from music and concentrated on science. Professor Griffin attended graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis, where he worked with Professor Samuel I. Weissman on EPR experiments directed at understanding the spectra and electron transfer processes of radical ions in solution. After completing his PhD, he moved to MIT to perform postdoctoral work with Professor John S. Waugh. At that time, the field of high-resolution NMR in solids was in its infancy, and he was involved in multiple-pulse NMR experiments that yielded the initial observation of chemical-shift anisotropies in single crystals and powders.

His primary research interests remain in the field of magnetic resonance in solids. In 1972, Professor Griffin accepted a position as a staff scientist at the Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory (FBML), and he rose through the ranks to become director in 1992. In 1988, he joined the faculty of the MIT Department of Chemistry, where he teaches physical chemistry.

Philip Gschwend’s research seeks to learn what happens to organic chemicals in natural and engineered environments. Gschwend received his BS from the California Institute of Technology and his PhD from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

He joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 1981. He is one of the authors of Environmental Organic Chemistry (Wiley-Interscience, 1993).