T. Alan Hatton receives Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education

The National Academy of Design (NAE) has actually revealed T. Alan Hatton, MIT’s Ralph Landau Teacher of Chemical Design Technique, Post-Tenure, as the recipient of the 2026 Bernard M. Gordon Reward for Development in Design and Innovation Education and learning, identifying his transformative management of the Institute’s David H. Koch Institution of Chemical Design Technique. The honor citation highlights his initiatives to progress “an immersive, industry-integrated instructional design that has actually created hundreds of design leaders, reinforcing united state technical competition and labor force preparedness.”

The Gordon Reward acknowledges “brand-new methods and experiments in education and learning that create efficient design leaders.” The reward is granted each year and brings a $500,000 money honor, fifty percent provided to the recipient and the rest provided to their establishment to sustain the identified technology.

” As design difficulties come to be much more intricate and interdisciplinary, education and learning has to develop along with them,” claims Paula Hammond, Institute Teacher and dean of the Institution of Design. “Under Alan’s management, the Technique Institution has actually shown exactly how extensive academics, actual commercial issues, and trainee duty can be woven with each other right into an academic experience that is both effective and versatile. His job supplies an engaging plan for the future of design education and learning.”

Hatton functioned as supervisor of the Technique Institution for 36 years, from 1989 till his retired life in 2025. When he presumed the duty, the program dealt with a restricted variety of host business, mainly within conventional chemical sectors. Gradually, Hatton improved the program’s extent and framework, allowing it to run throughout continents and markets to use pupils direct exposure to varied modern technologies, business societies, and geographical setups.

” The MIT Chemical Design Technique Institution stands for a degree of experiential understanding that couple of programs anywhere can match,” claims Kristala L. J. Prather, the Arthur D. Little Teacher and head of the Division of Chemical Design. “This acknowledgment mirrors not just Alan’s remarkable individual payments, yet likewise the long-lasting worth of a program that prepares pupils to provide effect from their really initial day as designers.”

Central to Hatton’s strategy was a purposeful approach of flexibility. He presented a version in which brand-new business are hired routinely as Technique Institution hosts, widening engagement while maintaining the program straightened with arising modern technologies and sector requirements. He likewise enhanced on-campus prep work by introducing an extensive task administration training course throughout MIT’s Independent Activities Duration (IAP)– training that has actually given that come to be fundamental for pupils getting in complicated, team-based commercial atmospheres.

This positive vision is shared by present Technique Institution management. Fikile Brushett, Ralph Landau Teacher of Chemical Design Technique and supervisor of the program, stresses that Hatton’s tradition is not a fixed one. “Alan regularly placed the Technique Institution to reply to transform– whether in modern technology, sector assumptions, or instructional technique,” Brushett claims. “The Gordon Reward gives a possibility to more develop the program while remaining real to its core concepts of immersion, roughness, and collaboration.”

In acknowledgment of Hatton’s solution, the division developed the T. Alan Hatton Fund in autumn 2025 with assistance from Technique Institution graduates. The fund is devoted to aiding release brand-new Technique Institution terminals, decreasing obstacles for arising companions and maintaining the program’s capability to involve with a wide and varied collection of sectors.

Understanding that supplies worth on both sides

The Technique Institution’s effect prolongs well past the class. Trainee groups are ingrained straight within host companies– typically in producing plants or r & d facilities– where they deal with flexible technological issues under actual functional restrictions. Enrollers consistently mention substantial results from these jobs, consisting of enhanced procedures, minimized prices, and brand-new technological instructions educated by MIT-level evaluation.

For pupils, the experience supplies something hard to duplicate in conventional scholastic setups: continual duty for intricate job, straight communication with sector specialists, and duplicated possibilities to existing, protect, and improve their concepts. The outcome is a training setting that very closely mirrors expert design technique, while preserving the reflective deepness of a scholastic program.

A program formed by background– and by adjustment

The Technique Institution was developed in 1916 to match class guideline with hands-on commercial experience, a concept that was unusual at the time. Greater than a century later on, the program has not just withstood yet constantly changed itself, broadening much past its very early concentrate on local chemical production.

Today, Technique Institution pupils collaborate with business all over the world in areas that consist of drugs, food manufacturing, power, progressed products, software application, and money. The program stays a specifying attribute of graduate education and learning in MIT’s Division of Chemical Design, connecting study toughness with the useful needs of sector.

Engagement in the Technique Institution is a called for part of the division’s Master of Scientific research in Chemical Design Technique (MSCEP) and PhD/ScD Chemical Design Technique (CEP) programs. After finishing coursework, pupils go to 2 off-campus terminals, investing 2 months at each website. Groups of 2 or 3 pupils service month-long jobs, finishing in official discussions and composed records provided to host companies. Current terminals have actually consisted of positionings with Evonik in Germany, AstraZeneca in Maryland, EGA in the United Arab Emirates, AspenTech in Massachusetts, and Covering Modern Technology Facility and Dimensional Power in Texas.

” I’m deeply recognized by this acknowledgment,” Hatton claims. “The Technique Institution has actually constantly had to do with finding out with duty– positioning pupils in scenarios where their job issues. This honor will certainly assist MIT improve that structure and discover methods to expand the design so it can offer a lot more pupils and companions in the years in advance.”

Hatton acquired his BS and MS levels in chemical design at the College of Natal in Durban, South Africa, prior to investing 3 years as a scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Study in Pretoria. He later on gained his PhD at the College of Wisconsin at Madison and signed up with the MIT professors in 1982 as an assistant teacher.

Throughout his occupation at MIT, Hatton aided expand the Technique Institution design past school with his participation in the Singapore– MIT Partnership for Research Study and Modern Technology and the Cambridge– MIT Institute, adding to the growth of practice-based design education and learning in global setups. He likewise functioned as co-director of the MIT Power Effort’s Low-Carbon Power Facility concentrated on carbon capture, use, and storage space.

Hatton has actually long been identified for his dedication to education and learning and solution. From 1983 to 1986, he functioned as a jr professors housemaster (currently referred to as an associate head of home) in MacGregor Residence and obtained MIT’s Everett Moore Baker Mentor Honor in 1983. His expert honors consist of being called a beginning other of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Design and an honorary professorial other at the College of Melbourne in Australia.

Along with his instructional management, Hatton has actually made significant payments to the wider design area, chairing several nationwide and global seminars in the locations of colloids and splitting up procedures and providing many plenary, keynote, and welcomed talks worldwide.

Hatton will officially obtain the Bernard M. Gordon Reward at an event organized by the National Academy of Design at MIT on April 30.