Professor of Neuroscience and President Emerita at MIT. Served as MIT’s sixteenth president from 2004 to 2012. Member, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. Prior to joining MIT, she was the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 1998 to 2002 and Provost from 2003 to 2004 at Yale University. Board Member of Repertoire Immune Medicines, Cajal Neuroscience and Break Through Cancer.

Served as Science Envoy with the U.S. Department of State and as a member of a Congressional Commission evaluating the Department of Energy laboratories. Founding co-chair of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership. Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Society for Neuroscience.

Recipient of the Charles L. Branch BrainHealth Award, Charles Judson Herrick Award from the American Association of Anatomists, the Wilbur Lucius Cross Award from Yale University, the Meliora Citation from the University of Rochester, the Golden Plate Award from the Academy of Achievement, the Amelia Earhart Award from the Women’s Union, the Edison Achievement Award, the Pinnacle Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and the Geoffrey Beene Builders of Science Award from Research!America. She previously served as a Director of General Electric Company from 2006 until 2018 and of Qualcomm Incorporated from 2012 until 2016.