In Special Recognition

The academic year 2002–2003 saw a number of changes to MIT's senior leadership.

At the end of the academic year, Alexander V. d'Arbeloff, chair of the MIT Corporation since 1997, became a life member emeritus of the Corporation. As chair, with the enthusiastic participation of Brit Jepson d'Arbeloff, Mr. d'Arbeloff provided active and visible leadership of the Institute's board of trustees and generous support for initiatives in research, education, and student life. At the suggestion of president emeritus Paul E. Gray, the Corporation elected Mr. d'Arbeloff to succeed Dr. Gray as honorary chair of the Corporation. The Corporation elected Dana G. Mead, retired chair and CEO of Tenneco Inc., to succeed Mr. d'Arbeloff as chair.

Stephen C. Graves, the Abraham J. Siegel professor of management and codirector of the Leaders for Manufacturing Program, completed his term as chair of the MIT Faculty. Professor Graves was attentive to issues of community on campus, and members of the faculty and administration alike appreciated his consistently thoughtful approach.

New academic department or program leaders whose service began during the year were Elizabeth Garrels, head, Foreign Languages and Literatures Section; Daniel E. Hastings, codirector, Engineering Systems Division; James Howe, interim head, Anthropology Program; Jean Jackson, head, Anthropology Program; Patrick Jaillet, head, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Peter C. Perdue, acting head, History Section; Henrik Schmidt, interim head, Department of Ocean Engineering; Lawrence J. Vale, head, Department of Urban Studies and Planning; Rosalind H. Williams, director, Program in Science, Technology, and Society; and Evan Ziporyn, head, Music and Theater Arts Section. William J. Mitchell, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning, took on the additional role of head of the Program in Media Arts and Sciences. Developments in the leadership of research activities included the appointment of Edwin L. Thomas as director of the new Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies.

Among notable changes in the administration during the past year were the appointments of Kelvin H. Chin, ombudsperson; Ellen W. Faran, director, The MIT Press; Ann M. Hammersla, senior counsel for intellectual property; Maryanne Kirkbride, clinical director for campus life; Anne Marie Michel, assistant dean for development, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; Alan Siegel, chief of mental health, MIT Medical Department; James Wallace, director of facilities operations and administration.

During the spring, the board of the Association of Alumni and Alumnae of MIT elected Elizabeth A. Garvin as executive vice president of the Association, effective July 1, 2003. Ms. Garvin, previously managing director of the Association and director of the Annual Fund, succeeds William J. Hecht, who served as executive vice president of the Association for twenty-three years.

Awards and Honors

The awards received by MIT faculty, students, and staff testify to the distinction of the Institute's programs and its people. Here we note only some of the honors and recognition earned by members of the Institute community during 2002–2003.

H. Robert Horvitz, the David H. Koch professor of cancer biology, was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for 2002, sharing the honor, for discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death, with colleagues in California and the United Kingdom. Professor Horvitz, an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, is also a member of the MIT Center for Cancer Research. He received the prize for discovering and characterizing the genes controlling cell death in the nematode C. elegans, a microscopic roundworm; he later showed that these genes interact with each other in cell death—a normal process in every living cell—and that they correspond to existing genes in humans.

Angelika Amon, the Linda and Howard Stern career development associate professor in the Department of Biology, was this year's recipient of the Alan T. Waterman Prize, the highest honor bestowed on young researchers by the National Science Foundation, in recognition of her work on the regulatory networks within the cell that ensure accurate duplication and segregation of genetic material during cell division.

Sendhil Mullainathan, the Mark Hyman Jr. career development assistant professor in the Department of Economics, was awarded a five-year MacArthur Fellowship—popularly known as the "genius grant"—by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Professor Mullainathan was one of 24 named to fellowship this year for fostering "lasting improvement in the human condition." He uses insights from psychology and sociology to better understand economic behavior and the functioning of markets and has studied issues including executive compensation and investor expectations of the stock market.

Ronald L. Rivest, the Andrew and Edna Viterbi professor of computer science and engineering, and two former MIT colleagues, Adi Shamir and Leonard M. Adleman, received the A. W. Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery for their contributions to public-key encryption technology.

Graham Walker, professor of biology, was named one of 20 inaugural Howard Hughes Medical Institute professors in the United States, each of whom will receive $1 million over the next four years to support innovative classroom teaching that bridges research and education. Several members of the MIT faculty are already HHMI investigators, who focus on basic biomedical research.

The National Academy of Engineering elected to membership two members of the Institute faculty: Stephen D. Senturia, the Barton L. Weller professor of electrical Engineering, and Gregory N. Stephanopoulos, the Bayer professor of chemical engineering.

Elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences were Sallie W. Chisholm, the Lee and Geraldine Martin professor of environmental studies in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and codirector of the Earth Systems Initiative; G. David Forney, Jr., the Bernard M. Gordon adjunct professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; professor of biology Rudolf Jaenisch, a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research; Paul L. Schechter, the William A. M. Burden professor of astrophysics in the Department of Physics; and the dean of the School of Science, Class of 1942 professor of chemistry Robert J. Silbey.

Gordon L. Brownell, professor emeritus in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine.

Three members of the faculty were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: F. Thomas Leighton, professor of applied mathematics; Silvio Micali, professor of computer science and engineering; and Mriganka Sur, the Sherman Fairchild professor of neuroscience and head of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Four members of the MIT faculty were elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science: Moungi G. Bawendi, professor of chemistry; Thomas W. Eagar, the Thomas Lord professor of materials science and engineering systems; Robert W. Field, the Haslam and Dewey professor of chemistry; and John D. Joannopoulos, the Francis Wright Davis professor of physics.

MIT students of outstanding distinction, who show promise of great future achievement, continue to receive important international scholarships. Samidh Chakrabarti (Class of 2002) and seniors David Foxe and Alexander D. Wissner-Gross received Marshall Scholarships for study in the United Kingdom.

Members of the faculty continued the Institute's tradition of national service. President George W. Bush nominated Kristin Forbes, associate professor of applied economics in the Sloan School, to serve on his three-member Council of Economic Advisers. President Bush nominated Professor Daniel E. Hastings of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and codirector of the Engineering Systems Division to membership on the National Science Board, which serves as the board of directors of the National Science Foundation. Institute Professor Sheila E. Widnall, former secretary of the air force and an expert in aerodynamics and fluid mechanics, was appointed to NASA's Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

US secretary of energy Spencer Abraham named MIT president Charles M. Vest to head the Task Force on the Future of Science Programs at the Department of Energy. Dr. Vest also received the Reginald H. Jones Distinguished Service Award from the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, in recognition of his leadership "in the effort to create a diverse corps of world-class engineers and scientists."

Institute Professor Peter A. Diamond received the James R. Killian, Jr., Faculty Achievement Award. Professor Diamond is known for his work in applied economic theory and his analysis of the Social Security system; the selection committee noted that he is one of the few economists of our time who has made important contributions in both micro- and macroeconomics and who has done both theoretical and data-oriented research.

Associate professor Hari Balakrishnan of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science was presented with the Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award, which recognizes junior faculty for exceptional achievements in teaching, research, and service to the MIT community.

Five members of the faculty were named MacVicar Faculty Fellows in honor of their accomplishments and innovative methods as teachers: Peter Child of Music and Theater Arts, Isabelle de Courtivron of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Jesús A. del Alamo of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Barbara Imperiali of Chemistry, and Ian A. Waitz of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

This year the Institute presented the Gordon Y Billard Award, recognizing special service of outstanding merit, to Amgen professor of biology Nancy H. Hopkins, whose tireless and courageous efforts to open careers in science to women have benefited MIT and have had national impact.

In their personal pursuits, members of the MIT faculty, staff, and students often make contributions as distinguished as those in their academic or professional specialties. This year, Michael J. Hawley, director of special projects at the Media Laboratory, shared first prize in the Van Cliburn Foundation's third annual International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs.

Public awareness of the outstanding design of the Institute's capital projects was heightened when Simmons Hall received the 2003 Honor Award for Outstanding Architecture from the American Institute of Architects.

In Memoriam

Each year inevitably takes from the MIT community many who have made tremendous contributions to the life of the Institute. We are grateful for their impassioned dedication and generous wisdom, and our sadness at their passing is tempered by our admiration for their accomplishments and the inspiration they provide for future generations.

Stanley Backer, professor emeritus of mechanical engineering, died at home in Waban on January 18, at the age of 82. A native of Boston and a graduate of the Boston Latin School, Professor Backer received his bachelor's degree from the Institute in 1941. He then entered the service of the U S Quartermaster, first as a major and then, after completing his tour of duty, as the civilian leader of the Quartermaster's Textile Engineering Laboratory. He returned to MIT for graduate study (SM, 1948, and PhD, 1953) and joined the faculty in 1951. A leading figure in the study of textile mechanics, Professor Backer headed the Fibers and Polymer Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering for more than a quarter-century; he made significant research contributions in the development of new fabrics and the use of fibrous reinforcement for nonfibrous materials. In the early 1960s, he helped pioneer the development of online information retrieval systems through his work on an international database of textile information. He continued to teach and write after retiring from the faculty in 1989, and in 2002 he published a history of textile engineering at MIT.

Professor of physics emeritus Martin Deutsch, best known as the discoverer of the element positronium, died at home in Cambridge on August 16, at the age of 85. His parents were both Viennese doctors, and his mother was Sigmund Freud's last pupil. Having participated in resistance to the fascist seizure of power, Professor Deutsch moved to Switzerland at the age of 17. While he was on a visit to the United States after his first semester at the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, Italy invaded Ethiopia, and he remained with his parents in this country, enrolling at MIT. He received his bachelor's degree in 1937 and his PhD in 1941. After two years at Los Alamos, working on problems of fission physics, he returned to the Institute in 1946. Five years later, he measured and confirmed the existence of positronium, a hydrogen-like atom without a nucleus whose existence had been theorized since the early 1930s and whose properties corroborated the quantum theory of electrodynamics for a two-particle system. Professor Deutsch served as director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science from 1973 to 1979; he retired in 1987 after four decades on the faculty.

Rudiger Dornbusch died at home in Washington, D.C., on July 25, aged 60. Widely acclaimed for his seminal research on the theory of exchange rate determination and international economic policy, he had been the Ford professor of international economics since 1984. Born in Germany, he had been educated at the University of Geneva and the University of Chicago, where he received his PhD in 1971. He joined the Institute faculty in 1975 after holding positions at Chicago and the University of Rochester. Professor Dornbusch was widely consulted as an expert on the problems faced by economies in crisis. Author of rigorous and influential technical papers, he was also able to communicate effectively to a broader audience: He contributed regularly to Business Week, and the textbook on macroeconomics he wrote with his MIT faculty colleague Stanley Fischer became a standard reference for a generation of students and was translated into a dozen languages. A dedicated teacher, he served as dissertation adviser for more than 125 doctoral students.

Cecil H. Green, life member emeritus of the MIT Corporation, died on April 11 at the Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California, at the age of 102. Born in Manchester, England, he moved to Canada as an infant and on to San Francisco in 1905. Shortly after the next year's earthquake, the family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. Mr. Green attended the University of British Columbia before coming to the Institute, where he received the SB and SM in electrical engineering as a member of the Class of 1923. He began his engineering career at General Electric before joining Dallas-based Geophysical Services (GSI). Green and three partners bought the company in 1941. Ten years later, it became Texas Instruments, Inc., and GSI became a subsidiary. Mr. Green served successively as vice president, president, and chairman of GSI as well as vice president and director of Texas Instruments. He and his beloved wife, the late Ida Mabelle (Flansburgh) Green, were extraordinary philanthropists who created facilities and endowed programs in education, science, medicine, and social service throughout the United States and in England, Canada, and Chile. Mr. Green was elected to the MIT Corporation in 1958 and became a life member emeritus in 1975. He and Mrs. Green were among the greatest of the Institute's benefactors, and the first husband and wife to serve simultaneously on the Corporation.

Institute Professor Hermann Haus, one of the world's leading authorities on optical communications, died on May 21, at the age of 77. Born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in the former Yugoslavia, he went to Austria when the country's German-speaking population was expelled after World War II. From there, he came to America; he earned a BS from Union College in 1949 and an MS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1951. He came to MIT for doctoral study and he was appointed assistant professor in 1954, the year he received the ScD. He was named associate professor in 1958 and full professor in 1962. Professor Haus's path-breaking work in quantum optics spanned from basic physics to engineering systems and helped make possible technological advances including the rapid voice and data communications of undersea fiber-optic cables linking America, Europe, and Asia. Known as a warm and inspiring teacher and colleague, Professor Haus was named an Institute Professor in 1986, and in 1995 he received the National Medal of Science

Professor emeritus of mathematics Francis B. Hildebrand died on November 29, at the age of 87. Professor Hildebrand received bachelor's and master's degrees from Washington and Jefferson College before coming to MIT, where he earned his PhD in applied mathematics in 1940. He was appointed to the faculty that same year and remained at the Institute until his retirement in 1984; during World War II, he worked for two years in the Radiation Laboratory. Professor Hildebrand's research focused on studies of numerical solution of integral equations and the theory of elasticity. He wrote a number of influential textbooks, beginning with Advanced Calculus for Engineers (1948), which became the standard reference for engineering mathematics; his Introduction to Numerical Analysis (1965) helped position numerical analysis as a major influence on early computer design. A student of the early history of photography, he was also an accomplished jazz musician.

Professor emeritus Robert L. Kyhl died on December 10 at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, at the age of 85. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he came to MIT as a researcher in the Radiation Laboratory nine months before the United States entered World War II. His wartime research centered on echo boxes, K-band atmospheric absorption, and longitudinal head-tail (LHT) cavities. After receiving his PhD in physics from the Institute in 1947, he worked in the Laboratory for Information Research and the Research Laboratory of Electronics before taking up positions at Stanford University and General Electric. Professor Kyhl returned to MIT as an associate professor of electrical engineering in 1956 and was a full professor from 1960 until his retirement in 1983. A man of wide interests, he played a 1744 Castagneri violin and loved climbing in the Swiss Alps and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. His late wife, and two grandsons, were MIT graduates.

Herbert Kottler, associate director of MIT Lincoln Laboratory since 1998, died at home in Concord at the age of 62. A specialist in sensor system design, testing, and development, during his early years at the laboratory Dr. Kottler had worked in the Countermeasures Technology Group and the Reentry Systems Program. He had gone on to lead the lab's Aerospace Division and then its space activities. In 1995, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration awarded him its Public Service Medal. As associate director, he held broad technical-management responsibilities for space activities and ballistic missile defense activities; worked to ensure that Lincoln's discretionary research efforts were recognized and addressed critical advanced security technology for the nation; and oversaw lab relations with the Office of the Secretary of Defense and with the Congress. Dr. Kottler had graduated from the Drexel Institute in his native Philadelphia and received his master's and doctorate from the Case Institute of Technology.

Professor E. Eugene Larrabee, a specialist in propeller and windmill design, died on January 11 in Mt. Vernon, New York, at the age of 82. Born in Marlborough, he graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1942 and worked at Curtiss Wright Corp. during World War II. He came to MIT for graduate study and stayed, starting to teach in 1946 and receiving the SM in aeronautics in 1948. A founding member of the Tech Model Aircrafters, Professor Larrabee was a popular figure with students, colleagues, and hobbyists who shared his passion for flight. He played a particularly important role in the development of human-powered flight: his designs were vital to the success of a series of notable human-powered aircraft—the Chrysalis (1978-79), the Gossamer Albatross (1979), and the Daedalus (1988).

René H. Miller, professor emeritus of aeronautics and astronautics, died in Cornwall, England, on January 28, at the age of 86. A native of New Jersey, Professor Miller was educated at Cambridge University in England, where he received a BA in 1937. He joined the faculty as an assistant professor in 1944; he was named associate professor in 1947 and full professor ten years later. In 1962 he was named the first holder of the Slater Professorship. Professor Miller's research focused on helicopters and other vertical takeoff and landing craft, the supersonic transport, and short-haul transportation systems. He retired from MIT in 1978 after a decade of service as head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Walter L. Milne, who died on December 23, at the age of 80, had long served as an aide and advisor to the senior officers of MIT. A native of Fall River and holder of two degrees from Brown University, Mr. Milne served in the Navy during World War II and then taught high school and college English. He came to MIT in 1951 to work in the MIT News Office; in 1958, he joined the staff of President Julius A. Stratton. During the decades that followed, he assumed primary responsibility for strengthening MIT's relationships with the City of Cambridge, assuring that the city and the Institute worked together and fostering the development of important community organizations and institutions. For many years he held the title of assistant to the chairman and to the president: he served under six presidents and four chairmen of the Corporation in all and continued to provide advice and counsel to the senior administration even after his formal retirement in 1991.

Professor of Meteorology Reginald E. Newell died on December 29 at Massachusetts General Hospital, at the age of 71. Born and raised in the United Kingdom, and a graduate of the University of Birmingham, Professor Newell came to MIT as research assistant in meteorology and went on to earn the SM and ScD. Widely respected for his research on global air pollution and on the energy, momentum, and mass balances of the climate system, his special interests included the physics of the ice ages as well as the roles of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere. Professor Newell joined the faculty in 1961 and had been a full professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences since 1969. He was a participant in numerous aircraft- and space shuttle-based experiments organized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Professor August F. Witt of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, a devoted teacher of undergraduates who was internationally noted for his research in electronic materials, died at home in Winchester on October 7; he was 71. Following an education that included study in nuclear chemistry with Nobel laureate Marie Joliot-Curie, Professor Witt received his PhD in physical chemistry from the University in his native Innsbruck, Austria, in 1959. The following year he came to MIT as a research associate in what was then the Department of Metallurgy, whose faculty he joined in 1962. His research focused on the processing and characterization of electronic materials; at the time of his death he was Ford professor of engineering. He was long recognized as a remarkable teacher and in 1993 was awarded a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellowship in recognition of his exceptional service to undergraduate education at the Institute. As a young man, Professor Witt was Austria's national saber champion, and he remained an avid sports fan as well as a gardener with a passion for classical music.

 

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