NPR reporter David Gura spotlights U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler as he takes a new approach to his role as head of the SEC. After teaching a cryptocurrency course at MIT and serving as the chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under President Obama, Gensler has “promised he’ll unveil new rules across the board as part of an ambitious agenda, from cryptocurrencies to new disclosure rules,” says Gura.
Institute Professor Paula Hammond, head of MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, has been selected to serve on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, “a group of external advisers tasked with making science, technology and innovation policy recommendations to the White House and the president,” reports Alexis Gravely for Inside Higher Ed. Professors Maria Zuber, MIT vice president for research, and Eric Lander, the president’s science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, are two of the co-chairs for the council.
Prof. Eric Lander will be sworn into his new post as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on a 500-year-old Jewish text, reports Jack Jenkins for The Washington Post. The question of what book to use for the swearing-in ceremony made him think of the choice as “a statement of what’s in my mind and what’s in my heart.”
Lecturer Karilyn Crockett, the first chief of equity for the City of Boston, speaks with Dialynn Dwyer of Boston.com about her efforts aimed at improving equity in Boston. “A lot of what’s been going on has just been working in partnership internally with city departments and agencies, and then looking outside of the building to see — who are these other partners who are really willing to take on this big work of equity?” says Crockett. “It’s been an incredibly busy and productive time because there’s such an incredible appetite, and even hunger, for understanding what equity is … across the city.”
In an article for The Boston Globe, President Emerita Susan Hockfield and Prof. Ernest Moniz, former secretary of energy, highlight alumnus George Shultz’s PhD ’49 visionary approach to tackling climate change and the development of new technologies. "George was masterful in bringing together people and ideas from disparate disciplines to find new kinds of solutions to daunting political, technological, and organizational problems," they write. "He created communities of shared concern, which he recognized was the way to get things done and to have lots of fun doing so, frequently reminding us, 'If you want to land together, you better take off together.'"
AP reporter Matthew Lee memorializes the life and work of George Shultz PhD ’49, “a titan of American academia, business and diplomacy who spent most of the 1980s trying to improve Cold War relations with the Soviet Union and forging a course for peace in the Middle East.”
George Shultz, an MIT alumnus and former professor of economics who served as a counsel and Cabinet member for two presidents, has died at age 100, reports Michael Abramowitz and David E. Hoffman for The Washington Post. “Mr. Shultz was a policy maven, conservative but curious, patient and determined. He ranged widely over domestic and foreign affairs,” they write.
Boston Globe reporter Mark Feenery writes that George Shultz PhD ’49, who held top positions under President Nixon and was secretary of state for President Regan, “was regarded as a model of managerial dependability: pragmatic, low key, unflappable.”
George Shultz PhD ’49, known for serving as President Regan’s secretary of state has died at 100, reports Malcolm Rutherford and Aime Williams for the Financial Times. Rutherford and Williams note that during Shultz’s tenure as secretary of state, “there were achievements in arms control, in reducing regional conflicts and in placing human rights on the US-Soviet agenda.”
George Schultz PhD ‘49, the former secretary of state under President Regan and an MIT alumnus, has died at 100, reports Michael R. Gordon for The Wall Street Journal. Gordon notes that Schultz’s “diplomacy helped seal the end of the Cold War,” adding that he “remained an active voice on national security, economic and environmental issues after leaving government.”
CBS News spotlights how two MIT researchers have been named to key roles on the Biden administration’s science team. Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, has been nominated to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, will co-chair the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Zuber said she hopes to "restore trust in science, and pursue breakthroughs that benefit all people."
Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, and Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, have been nominated to leading roles on the Biden administration's science team, report Nidhi Subbaraman and Alexandra Witze for Nature. “These are excellent appointments, highly qualified and experienced, and well grounded in science,” says Rita Colwell, a professor at University of Maryland at College Park and former director of the National Science Foundation
AP reporter Seth Borenstein writes about how President-elect Joe Biden is nominating Prof. Eric Lander of the Broad Institute to serve as his chief science officer and lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and has selected Maria Zuber, vice president for research at MIT, to co-chair the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Francis Collins, director of the NIH, called Lander, “brilliant, visionary, exceptionally creative and highly effective in aspiring others. I predict he will have a profound transformational effect on American science.”
New York Times reporter Carl Zimmer writes that Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, has been nominated to serve as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and to serve as a presidential science advisor. MIT Vice President for Research Maria Zuber will co-chair the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Prof. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute, has been nominated by President-elect Joe Biden to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which Biden will make a Cabinet-level position, reports Sarah Kaplan for The Washington Post. Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, will co-chair the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.