Summer 2019 / Trajectory

Alumnus Named First Dean

The first dean of the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, Daniel Huttenlocher SM ’84, PhD ’88, returns to MIT with widely published scholarship in computer science as well as a strongly interdisciplinary approach to computing.

A member of Cornell’s computer science faculty since 1988, Huttenlocher has served since 2012 as the founding dean of Cornell Tech, a graduate school in New York City that focuses on digital technology and its economic and societal impacts. Previously, he helped create and then led Cornell’s Faculty of Computing and Information Science.

Huttenlocher also has an industry background, having served for 12 years as a scientist at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center before leaving to cofound a financial technology company in 2000. He currently chairs the board of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and sits on the boards of directors of Amazon and Corning.

“The Institute plays a unique role in American and global higher education, and it’s exciting to be coming back to the place where I did my formative research work,” Huttenlocher says. “I’ve learned a lot from MIT, and the world has changed a lot. If I can help contribute to the ways MIT wants to change in this new world, that is an amazing honor.”

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