Skip to content ↓

MIT Corporation elects new members

Hockfield named life member; 10 others elected as term members.
The MIT Corporation — the Institute’s board of trustees — elected 10 term members, with terms ranging from two to five years, during its quarterly meeting today. President Susan Hockfield, who will step down July 1, was named a life member. The election results were announced by Corporation Chairman John S. Reed ’61.

Eight term members were elected to serve for five years: Tanguy Chau SM/PhD ’10, MBA ’11 (recent classes nominee); Arunas A. Chesonis ’84; Mark P. Gorenberg ’76 (Alumni Association nominee, elected to his third five-year term); Paul R. Marcus ’81 (Alumni Association nominee); Fariborz Maseeh ’90; Philip C. T. Ng ’83; Phillip T. Ragon ’72; and R. Gregory Turner ’74 (Alumni Association nominee).

Also elected as term members were Marjorie M.T. Yang ’74, who was elected to a three-year term, and former Executive Vice President and Treasurer Theresa M. Stone ’76, who was elected to a two-year term.

It was also announced at the meeting that Chiquita White, who is currently serving as a Corporation term member, has been named the 2012-13 president of the MIT Alumni Association.

Both term members and life members — who serve without a specific term until they reach age 75 — have voting rights in the Corporation. At age 75, life members become life members emeritus; while they no longer have a vote, they continue to play an active role in Institute affairs.

As of July 1, the Corporation will consist of 72 distinguished leaders in education, science, engineering and industry; of those, 24 are life members and eight are ex officio. An additional 31 individuals are life members emeritus.

The elected term members are:

Tanguy Chau SM/PhD ’10, MBA ’11
Associate, McKinsey & Company; Founder, Sample6 Technologies
Chau received his BS degree in chemical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He earned his SM and PhD in chemical engineering practice from MIT in 2010, and received an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 2011. While at MIT, he founded and led technology development for Sample6 Technologies (previously Novophage), a startup that leverages synthetic biology to prevent and treat bacterial contaminations in medical and industrial settings. In 2012, he joined McKinsey & Company, where he primarily serves technology and health care private equity clients. He was a student member of the Corporation Joint Advisory Committee from 2008 to 2011.

Arunas A. Chesonis ’84
CEO and Chairman, Sweetwater Energy Inc.
Chesonis holds an SB in civil engineering from MIT and an MBA from the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester. He most recently served as chairman and CEO of PAETEC Holding Corp., a Fortune 1000 telecommunications company acquired in 2011 by Windstream Corp. His private philanthropic organization, the Chesonis Family Foundation, supports environmental and renewable-energy research projects, and has supported breakthrough technology research at MIT to address climate change and sustainability. He is a member of the MIT Energy Initiative External Advisory Board and sits on the Corporation’s civil and environmental engineering and materials science and engineering visiting committees.

Mark P. Gorenberg ’76
Managing Director, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
Gorenberg earned an SB in electrical engineering from MIT in 1976, an MS in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1979 and an MS in engineering management from Stanford University in 1984. He has spent his business career in software development, and has been a research and development manager in large corporations and entrepreneurial environments. In 2011, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Gorenberg sits on the Corporation’s development committee, and on the leadership board of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research; he was also the co-chair of MIT’s recent Campaign for Students.

Susan Hockfield
President, MIT
Hockfield has served as MIT’s 16th president since December 2004, and holds a faculty appointment as professor of neuroscience; she will leave office on July 1. An accomplished life scientist, she earned a BA in biology from the University of Rochester in 1973 and a PhD from Georgetown University’s School of Medicine in 1979. Hockfield is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She serves as a director of General Electric Co. and the World Economic Forum Foundation. In June 2011, President Barack Obama asked her to co-chair the steering committee of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership.

Paul R. Marcus ’81
CEO, Marcus Partners Inc.
Marcus graduated from MIT in 1981 with an SB in civil engineering. He is the founder and CEO of Marcus Partners, a real-estate investment firm with offices in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Florida. He is also a founder of the Boston-based Autism Consortium, which facilitates broad-based collaboration among 15 Boston-area institutions —including MIT — and funds clinical innovation and translational research in autism and other related brain disorders. He serves on the MIT Corporation visiting committee for brain and cognitive sciences and is a founding member of the 484 Phi Alpha Foundation, an MIT-affiliated educational foundation.

Fariborz Maseeh ScD ’90
Founder and President, The Massiah Foundation; Founder and Managing Principal, Picoco LLC
Maseeh earned a BS from Portland State University, an MS from the University of Texas at Austin, and a ScD from MIT. He is a member of the California Council on Science and Technology and the Advisory Board of Engineering at MIT, and a trustee of the Foundation at the University of California at Irvine. He currently sits on the Corporation’s visiting committees for brain and cognitive sciences and the dean for student life.

Philip C. T. Ng ’83
CEO, Far East Organization
Ng holds a BS in civil engineering from King’s College, London, and two master’s degrees from MIT — one in technology and public policy, and one in city planning. He is the CEO of Far East Organization, a family-owned property development and investment group operating in Singapore and Malaysia. Far East Organization has built more than 700 developments across the full spectrum of real estate in the residential, hospitality, commercial and industrial sectors in Singapore. Ng is on the Corporation’s visiting committee for urban studies and planning.

Phillip T. Ragon ’72
CEO, InterSystems Corporation
Ragon earned his SB in physics from MIT in 1972. In 1978, he founded InterSystems, a $400-million software company with its corporate headquarters in Cambridge, Mass., and offices in 23 countries. In 2008, he and his wife, Susan, helped create the Ragon Institute — a joint research center of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard University. The vision of the Ragon Institute is to “harness the immune system through science to prevent and cure disease”; its immediate objective is the creation of a vaccine for HIV. Ragon is on the Corporation’s visiting committees for physics and health sciences and technology.

Theresa M. Stone ’76
Former Executive Vice President and Treasurer, MIT
Stone received a BA in French literature from Wellesley College in 1966, studied French and comparative literature at Cornell University from 1966 to 1970, and received an SM in management from MIT in 1976. In 2007, Stone became MIT’s executive vice president and treasurer, a position she held until 2011. She has served on the Corporation’s executive, development and investment committees, as well as visiting committees for music and theater arts, humanities and linguistics and philosophy.

R. Gregory Turner ’74, SM ’77
President, Turner Duran Architects
Turner earned his SB and SM in architecture from MIT in 1974 and 1977, respectively, and an MBA from the University of Houston in 1997. Turner began his career in architecture with I.M. Pei & Partners and then worked in Philip Johnson’s office, both in New York. With Johnson, he spent several years designing and detailing the groundbreaking AT&T Corporate Headquarters Tower in New York. In 1984, Turner began his own firm in Houston, which now handles midsize projects for educational, religious, nonprofit and corporate clients. He has been active in the MIT Alumni Association since 1992 and served as its president last year. He is also a member of the Corporation Development Committee, and formerly directed the MIT clubs of South Texas and New York.

Marjorie M.T. Yang ’74
Chairman, Esquel Group
Yang has an SB from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is chairman of Esquel Group, a leading Hong Kong-based textile and apparel manufacturer with operations throughout the world, producing more than 100 million cotton shirts every year for internationally acclaimed brands. Yang is actively involved in conserving the environment and the promotion of sustainable production. She has served on the Corporation’s visiting committees for architecture and mathematics, and on the Campaign Steering Committee.

Related Links

Related Topics

More MIT News