Balance Enthusiasm with Reality

I have to say, I don't view myself as someone with lots of courage. I view myself as someone who is easily possessed, monomaniacal about something. There are things that attract my curiosity that I just can't keep my hands off. It's like the vacuum cleaner. I couldn't keep my hands off my mother's vacuum cleaner. I just had to take it apart. So, I, and I would not consider, ever consider myself to be the most secure person. You know I have lots of doubts. I mean, even today, I mean, after I've done all the things I've done, I still kind of like, oh, this the right thing to do, or these the right clothes to wear. It's not as though I go through the day feeling secure about everything, but there are things about which I have been compelled, and that's the way it's been with happily with my science.

I've done very few things with my science that was not kind of welling up within. So, I think the mistake that I did make and others could make, is that you have to kind of titrate your enthusiasm against reality. And that comes from talking to people and you know having real conversations with people. And I think one of the things that inhibits young scientists is feeling some reticence to engage in conversation with people who can give them insights that you can't read about it. And I think that was one of the wonderful things for me about meeting Jim Watson.

Engage in Conversations

What I found wonderful about Jim [Watson] is I never edited my conversations with him and I never, it would have to be something pretty important before I would go to talk to him. But I've never felt inhibited about approaching people. It was like this faculty member who I just went because I had a question in class. I should have done that more. And the one thing that I would advise my younger self, go talk to people. And if you're curious and you're honest, people will respond. And if someone doesn't, you just shake the sand off your feet and leave that person aside. Because I think believing that the world is curious, I tend to be ridiculously optimistic. But I think that's part of what's allowed me to do what otherwise would be impossible things. People, good people, want to talk to other interesting people. And again, I still don't do it enough. The place I enjoy being in now, which is this multidisciplinary institute that we started the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research with engineers and biologists and you know who knows who's in here. I could stop anyone in the corridor and say, what are you working on? And have the same experience that I had when I first came to MIT, which is finding myself in a future I had not yet imagined. And so, I think my best advice for young scientists is to engage in conversation. If someone rebuffs you, don't worry about it. Just continue because the people you want to talk to are the people who are interested in talking to curious people.

Don’t Isolate Yourself

Do not go it alone. You don't need to go it alone. And my guess is for everyone, everyone can be better than they themselves are by engaging with the intelligence of others. And you know for some, maybe it's embarrassing that you can't solve the problem on your own. Don't let yourself be embarrassed by it. People love sharing curiosity.

Susan Hockfield is a neuroscientist whose research focuses on brain development and glioma, pioneering the use of monoclonal antibody technology demonstrating that early experience results in lasting changes in the molecular structure of the brain. She is a Professor of Neuroscience and President Emerita at MIT. She was the first woman and life scientist to serve as MIT’s sixteenth president from 2004-2012.

Hockfield earned her B.A. in biology from the University of Rochester (1973) and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University at the School of Medicine (1979). In 1980, Hockfield completed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at San Francisco. She then joined the scientific staff at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York where she ran her own lab for five years. She also served as director of the Summer Neurobiology Program from 1985 to 1997. In 1985, Hockfield became the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology at Yale University. She went on to serve as the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 1998-2002, and Provost from 2003-2004.

In December 2004, Hockfield assumed office as the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She held this role until June 2012 and continues to hold a faculty appointment as professor of neuroscience and as a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

Hockfield has received numerous awards including the Charles Judson Herrick Award from the American Association of Anatomists, the Wilbur Lucius Cross Award from the Yale University Graduate School, the Meliora Citation from the University of Rochester, the Amelia Earhart Award from the Women’s Union, and the Yale Science and Engineering Association 2021 Award for Distinguished Service to Industry, Commerce or Education.

She also holds honorary degrees from Brown University, Duke University, Georgetown University, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York University, Northeastern University, Tsinghua University (Beijing), Université Pierre et Marie Curie, University of Edinburgh, University of Massachusetts Medical School, University of Rochester, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory School of Biological Sciences.