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Charles
M. Vest
President, MIT |
Charles
M. Vest has been president of MIT since 1990. During this
time he has placed special emphasis on enhancing undergraduate
education, exploring new organizational forms to meet emerging
directions in research and education, building a stronger
international dimension into education and research programs,
developing stronger relations with industry, and enhancing
racial and cultural diversity at MIT. He has also devoted
considerable energy to bringing issues concerning education
and research to broader public attention and to strengthening
national policy on science, engineering, and education.
In this
latter capacity, Dr. Vest chaired the President's Advisory
Committee on the Redesign of the Space Station and has served
as a member of the President's Committee of Advisors on
Science and Technology (PCAST), the Massachusetts Governor's
Council on Economic Growth and Technology, and the National
Research Council Board on Engineering Education. He chairs
the U.S. Department of Energy Task Force on the Future of
Science Programs and is Vice Chair of the Council on Competitiveness
and immediate past Chair of the Association of American
Universities (AAU). He sits on the board of directors of
both IBM and E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company.
Dr.
Vest was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, on September
9, 1941. He earned his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering
from West Virginia University in 1963 and both his M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan in 1964
and 1967, respectively.
As a
member of the mechanical engineering faculty at MIT, Dr.
Vest has research interests in the thermal sciences and
the engineering applications of lasers and coherent optics.
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