page_title: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
section_title: Faculty and staff
hierarchical_section_title: Massachusetts Institute of Technology / People / Faculty and staff
caption_attribution_description: English: Ford/MIT Nobel Laureate Lecture Series on September 18, 2000 in Kresge Auditorium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Shown are (from left to right) Franco Modigliani, Paul Samuelson, and Robert Solow.
context_page_description: Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The institute is a land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant university, with an urban campus that extends more than a mile alongside the Charles River. The institute also encompasses a number of major off-campus facilities such as the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the Bates Center, and the Haystack Observatory, as well as affiliated laboratories such as the Broad and Whitehead Institutes. Founded in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, MIT adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. It has since played a key role in the development of many aspects of modern science, engineering, mathematics, and technology, and is widely known for its innovation and academic strength.
  As of October 2019, 96 Nobel laureates, 26 Turing Award winners, and 8 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT as alumni, faculty members, or researchers.
context_section_description: As of 2013, MIT had 1,030 faculty members. Faculty are responsible for lecturing classes, for advising both graduate and undergraduate students, and for sitting on academic committees, as well as for conducting original research. Between 1964 and 2009 a total of seventeen faculty and staff members affiliated with MIT won Nobel Prizes (thirteen of them in the latter 25 years). As of October 2019, 37 MIT faculty members, past or present, have won Nobel Prizes, the majority in Economics or Physics.
  As of October 2013, current faculty and teaching staff included 67 Guggenheim Fellows, 6 Fulbright Scholars, and 22 MacArthur Fellows. Faculty members who have made extraordinary contributions to their research field as well as the MIT community are granted appointments as Institute Professors for the remainder of their tenures.
  A 1998 MIT study concluded that a systemic bias against female faculty existed in its School of Science, although the study's methods were controversial. Since the study, though, women have headed departments within the Schools of Science and of Engineering, and MIT has appointed several female vice-presidents, although allegations of sexism continue. Susan Hockfield, a molecular neurobiologist, served as MIT's president from 2004 to 2012 – the first woman to hold the post.
  Tenure issues have vaulted MIT into the national spotlight on several occasions. The 1984 dismissal of David F. Noble (a historian of technology) became a cause célèbre about the extent to which academics are granted freedom of speech after he published several books and papers critical of MIT's and other research universities' reliance upon financial support from corporations and the military. Former materials-science professor Gretchen Kalonji sued MIT in 1994, alleging that she was denied tenure because of sexual discrimination. Several years later, the lawsuit was settled with undisclosed payments and the establishment of a project to encourage women and minorities to seek faculty positions. In 1997 the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination issued a probable-cause finding supporting UMass Boston Professor James Jennings' allegations of racial discrimination after a senior faculty search committee in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning did not offer him reciprocal tenure.
  In 2006–2007, MIT's denial of tenure to African-American stem-cell scientist professor James Sherley reignited accusations of racism in the tenure process, eventually leading to a protracted public dispute with the administration, a brief hunger-strike, and the resignation of Professor Frank L. Douglas in protest. The Boston Globe reported on February 6, 2007: "Less than half of MIT's junior faculty members are granted tenure. After Sherley was initially denied tenure, his case was examined three times before the university established that neither racial discrimination nor conflict of interest affected the decision. Twenty-one of Sherley's colleagues later issued a statement saying that the professor was treated fairly in tenure review."
  MIT faculty members have often been recruited to lead other colleges and universities. Founding faculty-member Charles W. Eliot became president of Harvard University in 1869, a post he would hold for 40 years, during which he wielded considerable influence both on American higher education and on secondary education. MIT alumnus and faculty member George Ellery Hale played a central role in the development of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and other faculty members have been key founders of Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in nearby Needham, Massachusetts.
  As of 2014 former provost Robert A. Brown served as president of Boston University; former provost Mark Wrighton is chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis; former associate provost Alice Gast is president of Lehigh University; and former professor Suh Nam-pyo is president of KAIST. Former dean of the School of Science Robert J. Birgeneau was the chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley (2004–2013); former profes
caption: Institute Professors Emeriti and Nobel Laureates (from left to right) Franco Modigliani (deceased), Paul Samuelson (also deceased), and Robert Solow (picture taken in 2000)
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