Following is the second installment profiling faculty members who have been approved for promotion to the rank of full professor by the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation. All appointments will take effect on July 1.
This group includes faculty members from the School of Engineering and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
The first installments published in the April 28 issue listed those from the School of Architecture and Planning, the School of Science and the Sloan School of Management.
School of Engineering
Gang Chen
Mechanical engineering
Education: B.E. 1984 and M.E. 1987 (both from Huazhong University of Science and Technology), Ph.D. 1993 (University of California at Berkeley)
Joined MIT faculty: 2001 (as tenured associate professor)
Chen works in the interdisciplinary field of nanoscale heat transfer and energy conversion--a topic on which he has just completed the first textbook by anyone. His research has applications in thermoelectrics, thermophotovoltaics, photonics and microelectronics. He is also interested in MEMS as well as radiation and electromagnetic metamaterials.
Judy L. Hoyt
Electrical engineering and computer science
Education: A.B. 1980 (University of California at Berkeley), Ph.D. 1987 (Stanford)
Joined MIT faculty: 2000 (as tenured associate professor)
Hoyt's accomplishments are in the area of semiconductor electronic materials and devices. She has been focusing on the use of new semiconductor materials, fabrication methods and device structures to improve the performance of silicon-based transistors. She also is interested in exploring materials processing and device technologies in the nanoscale regime sphere.
David R. Karger
Electrical engineering and computer science
Education: A.B. 1989 (Harvard), math certificate 1990 (Cambridge University), Ph.D. 1994 (Stanford)
Joined MIT faculty: 1995
Tenured: 2001
Karger, who is affiliated with the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, has made significant contributions to theoretical computer science, particularly in the area of randomized algorithms. He has also done work on information retrieval. He recently received the NAS Award for Initiatives in Research.
Dava J. Newman
Aeronautics and astronautics, HST and ESD
Education: B.S. 1986 (Notre Dame), two S.M.s in 1989 and Ph.D. in 1992 (all from MIT)
Joined MIT faculty: 1993
Tenured: 2000
Newman has studied locomotion mechanics of astronauts in a reduced-gravity environment and has established a database and models for the mechanics of space suit joints. She is now working on a revolutionary second-skin space suit design for human exploration of Mars. Newman is director of the Technology Policy Program and is a MacVicar Faculty Fellow.
Caroline Ross
Materials science and engineering
Education: B.A. 1985, Ph.D. 1988 (both from Cambridge University)
Joined MIT faculty: 1997
Tenured: 2001
Ross' research, which focuses on the magnetic properties of thin films and patterned surfaces, has provided key insights into the structure-property-function connections of magnetic materials for the data storage industry. Her work has applications in hard disks, magnetic random access memories and patterned recording media, as well as magneto-optical materials, nanolithography and self-assembly.
Simon Mark Spearing
Aeronautics and astronautics
Education: B.A. 1986, M.A. 1990, Ph.D. 1990 (all from Cambridge University)
Joined MIT faculty: 1994
Tenured: 2001
Spearing is internationally recognized for his work in advanced structural materials and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). He has developed analytical models for wafer bonding, novel packaging and SiC technology for MEMS. He has created a mechanistic approach to fatigue damage in composite structures, and he also works on structural health monitoring.
David L. Trumper
Mechanical engineering
Education: S.B. 1980, S.M. 1984, Ph.D. 1990 (all from MIT)
Joined MIT faculty: 1993
Tenured: 2000
Trumper is a leading authority on the design of precision mechatronic systems. He is vice president of the American Society for Precision Engineering and holds 11 patents. He has recently developed a new curriculum and laboratories for subject 2.003, and has twice won MIT's Spira Award for Teaching Excellence.
School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Esther Duflo
Economics
Education: Maitrise, 1994 (École Normale Supérieure), D.E.A. 1995 (Département et Laboratoire d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée), Ph.D. 1999 (MIT)
Joined MIT faculty: 1999
Tenured: 2002
Duflo has made influential contributions on issues central to the growth and development of poor nations. She has studied government and household economic issues in countries including Indonesia, South Africa and India. Her findings have attracted attention not just in development economics but in labor economics, political economy and public finance.
Sendhil Mullainathan
Economics
Education: B.A. 1993 (Cornell), Ph.D. 1998 (Harvard)
Joined MIT faculty: 1998
Tenured: 2003
Mullainathan's research at the intersection of psychology and economics has played a significant role in advancing the field of behavioral economics. He has done influential work on labor market discrimination, executive compensation, and econometric analysis of economic policy reforms.
Sally Haslanger
Linguistics and philosophy
Education: B.A., 1977 (Reed College), M.A. 1980 (University of Virginia), Ph.D. 1985 (University of California at Berkeley)
Joined MIT faculty: 1998 (as tenured associate professor)
Haslanger is a leader in feminist theory and issues concerning gender and race. She has done definitive work on the problematic concept of social construction. Her research has shown the relevance of abstract analytical issues in metaphysics and epistemology to specific substantive issues in social and political philosophy.
Corrections
- In the April 14 article on School of Science faculty members promoted to full professor, an incorrect photo ran with the segment on Professor of Biology Jianzhu Chen. His writeup is reprinted with the correct photo below.
- In an accompanying article on faculty members promoted from assistant professor to associate professor without tenure, the name of Eric Klopfer of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning was mistakenly omitted.
Jianzhu Chen
Biology
Education: B.S. 1982 (Wuhan University), Ph.D. 1990 (Stanford)
Joined MIT faculty: 1994
Tenured: 2001
Chen has identified DNA sequences that are critical for the assembly of immune receptor genes. He and his group have also identified and characterized memory immune cells and defined a novel pathway of memory immune cell differentiation. Their findings may aid development of vaccines for diseases including AIDS and SARS.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 28, 2004.
