Paula Hammond named dean of the School of Engineering

Paula Hammond ’84, PhD ’93, an Institute Teacher and MIT’s executive vice provost, has actually been called dean of MIT’s Institution of Design, efficient Jan. 16. She will certainly do well Anantha Chandrakasan, the Vannevar Shrub Teacher of Electric Design and Computer Technology, that was designated MIT’s provost in July.

Hammond, that was head of the Division of Chemical Design from 2015 to 2023, has actually likewise worked as MIT’s vice provost for professors. She will certainly be the initial lady to hold the duty of dean of MIT’s Institution of Design.

” From the roughness and imagination of her clinical job to her exceptional document of solution to the Institute, Paula Hammond stands for the best of MIT,” claims MIT Head of state Sally Kornbluth. “Wise, thoughtful, realistic, deeply interested, and soaked in MIT’s society and worths, Paula will certainly be a very efficient leader for the Institution of Design. I’m happy she approved this brand-new difficulty.”

Hammond, that is likewise a participant of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Cells Research study, has actually gained numerous honors for her job establishing polymers and nanomaterials that can be made use of for applications consisting of medication shipment, regenerative medication, noninvasive imaging, and battery modern technology.

Chandrakasan introduced Hammond’s visit today in an e-mail to the MIT neighborhood, creating, “Since signing up at MIT as an undergraduate, Paula has actually developed an impressive document of achievement in scholarship, mentor, and solution. Professors, personnel, and trainees throughout the Institute applaud her knowledge, altruism, and generosity, particularly when it involves making it possible for others’ specialist development and success.”

” Paula is a scholar of amazing difference. It is tough to overemphasize the worth of the wide payments she has actually made in her area, which have actually dramatically broadened the frontiers of understanding,” Chandrakasan informed MIT Information ” Any type of among her numerous accomplishments might stand as the keystone of an impressive scholastic profession. On top of that, her financial investment in mentoring the future generation of scholars and developing neighborhood is unequaled.”

Chandrakasan likewise gave thanks to Teacher Maria Yang, that has actually worked as the institution’s acting dean in current months. “In a testimony to her very own historical payments to the Institution of Design, Maria tackled the deanship also while preserving management duties with the Ideation Laboratory, D-Lab, and Morningside Academy for Layout. For her outstanding solution and management, Maria deserves our deep gratitude,” he contacted the neighborhood.

Structure a feeling of neighborhood

Throughout her profession at MIT, Hammond has actually assisted to develop a helpful setting in which professors and trainees can do their ideal job. As vice provost for professors, a function Hammond thought in 2023, she created and looked after brand-new initiatives to enhance professors employment and retention, mentoring, and specialist growth. Previously this year, she tackled extra obligations as executive vice provost, supplying advice and oversight for a variety of Institute-wide efforts.

As head of the Division of Chemical Design, Hammond functioned to reinforce the division’s feeling of neighborhood and started a tactical preparation procedure that brought about even more joint study in between professor. Under her management, the division likewise released a significant testimonial of its undergraduate educational program and presented even more adaptability right into the demands for a chemical design level.

An additional significant top priority was making sure that professors had the assistance they required to seek brand-new study objectives. To aid attain that, she developed and elevated funds for a collection of Professors Research study Advancement Fund gives for mid-career professors that wished to check out fresh instructions.

” I actually appreciated making it possible for professors to check out brand-new locations, locating means to source them, ensuring that they had the ideal mentoring early in their profession and the ‘wind underneath their wings’ that they required to obtain where they wished to go,” she claims. “That, to me, was very satisfying.”

Prior to handling her main management duties, Hammond offered the Institute with her job chairing boards that added spots records on sex and race at MIT: the Campaign for Professors Race and Variety and the Academic and Business Relationships Working Team.

In her brand-new duty as dean, Hammond prepares to start by speaking with professors throughout the Institution of Design to read more concerning their demands.

” I such as to begin with discussions,” she claims. “I’m extremely delighted concerning the concept of going to each of the divisions, discovering what gets on the minds of the professors, and determining just how we can meaningfully resolve their demands and remain to construct and expand an outstanding design program.”

Among her objectives is to advertise higher cross-disciplinarity in MIT’s educational program, partly by urging and supplying sources for professors to establish even more training courses that connect several divisions.

” There are some obstacles that exist in between divisions, due to the fact that all of us require to show our core demands,” she claims. “I am extremely thinking about teaming up with divisions to think of just how we can decrease obstacles to permit professors to co-teach, or to possibly consider various training course frameworks that permit us to show a core part and after that have it branch to an extra specific part.”

She likewise intends to assist MIT’s design divisions in locating means to integrate expert system right into their educational program, and to provide trainees higher possibility for appropriate hands-on experiences in design.

” I am especially delighted to construct from the solid cross-disciplinary initiatives and the essential tactical efforts that Anantha released throughout his time as dean,” Hammond claims. “I think we have extraordinary chances to construct off these vital locations at the user interfaces of scientific research, design, the liberal arts, arts, style, and plan, and to develop brand-new rising areas. MIT must be the leader in supplying academic structures that prepare our trainees for a very interdisciplinary and AI-enabled globe, and a setup that allows our scientists and scholars to address one of the most hard and immediate issues of the globe.”

A leader in nanotechnology

Hammond matured in Detroit, where her papa was a PhD biochemist that ran the wellness labs for the city of Detroit. Her mommy established a nursing institution at Wayne Region Area University, and both moms and dads urged her passion in scientific research. As an undergrad at MIT, she learnt chemical design with a concentrate on polymer chemistry.

After finishing in 1984, Hammond invested 2 years functioning as a procedure designer at Motorola, after that gained a master’s level in chemical design from Georgia Technology. She recognized that she wished to seek a profession in academic community, and went back to MIT to gain a PhD in polymer scientific research modern technology. After completing her level in 1993, she invested a year and a fifty percent as a postdoc at Harvard College prior to signing up with the MIT professors in 1995.

She came to be a complete teacher in 2006, and in 2021, she was called an Institute Professor, the greatest honor presented by MIT. In 2010, Hammond signed up with MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Cells Study, where she leads a laboratory that is establishing unique nanomaterials a selection of applications, with a key concentrate on therapies and diagnostics for ovarian cancer cells.

Early in her profession, Hammond created a method for creating useful thin-film products by piling layers of billed polymeric products. This strategy can be made use of to construct polymers with very managed designs by at the same time subjecting a surface area to favorably and adversely billed fragments.

She has actually utilized this layer-by-layer setting up strategy to construct ultrathin batteries, gas cell electrodes, and medication shipment nanoparticles that can be particularly targeted to cancer cells. These fragments can be customized to bring radiation treatment medicines such as cisplatin, immunotherapy representatives, or nucleic acids such as carrier RNA.

In acknowledgment of her introducing study, Hammond was granted the 2024 National Medal of Technology and Innovation She was likewise the 2023-24 recipient of MIT’s Killian Award, which honors amazing specialist accomplishments by an MIT professor. Her numerous various other honors consist of the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry in 2024, the ACS Honor in Polymer Scientific Research in 2018, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Charles M. A. Stine Honor in Products Design and Scientific Research in 2013, and the Ovarian Cancer Cells Study Program Teal Pioneer Honor in 2013.

Hammond has actually likewise been recognized for her commitment to mentor and mentoring. As a representation of her quality in those locations, she was granted the Irwin Sizer Honor for Substantial Improvements to MIT Education And Learning, the Henry Hillside Speaker Honor in 2002, and the Junior Bose Professors Honor in 2000. She likewise co-chaired the current Impromptu Board on Professors Advising and Mentoring, and has actually been picked as a “Devoted to Caring” guest of honor for her job mentoring trainees and postdocs in her study team.

Hammond has actually offered on the Head of state’s Council of Advisors on Scientific Research and Modern technology, along with the united state Assistant of Power Scientific Board Of Advisers, the NIH Facility for Scientific Testimonial Advisory Council, and the Board of Supervisors of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. In addition, she is among a little team of researchers that have actually been chosen to the National Academies of Design, Sciences, and Medication.