Hockfield, Susan

Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Susan Hockfield, Ph.D., was named the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology. She joined the faculty in the Section of Neurobiology at the medical school in 1985 and has served as dean of the graduate school since 1998, overseeing the academic and administrative policies of the school, its 2,300 students and 750 faculty. Hockfield has sought to improve the quality of life for graduate students and increase opportunities for informal interaction between faculty and students. Her research work has looked at the molecular substrates involved in brain development, and she discovered a protein in the space around cells that is involved in early development and may play a role in brain tumors.