L. Rafael Reif is the seventeenth president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), through which post he has fostered the growth of MIT’s nonprofit online platform, edX, and helped MIT pioneer the role that online learning and credentials will play in the future of higher education. He created the MIT Innovation Initiative; established the Environmental Solutions Initiative, the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Laboratory, the Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Lab, and the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health; issued the MIT Plan for Action on Climate Change; and launched The Engine, a specialized “tough tech” accelerator. His other key priorities include the Kendall Square Initiative, an ambitious redevelopment plan powered by MIT; the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab; the MIT Quest for Intelligence; the Task Force on the Work of the Future; and the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, the most significant reshaping of the Institute since the 1950s. Last summer, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about U.S. technology leadership and the emergence of China. He has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1980.
Elected Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and NAE. Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Member of the Board of Trustees, World Economic Forum.