Prof. L Rafael Reif

Before becoming president, as MIT’s provost (2005-2012), Dr. Reif helped create and implement the strategy that allowed MIT to weather the global financial crisis, drove the growth of MIT’s global strategy, promoted a major faculty-led effort to address challenges around race and diversity, and helped launch the Institute for Medical Engineering and Sciences.

A member of the MIT faculty since 1980, he has served as director of MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories, as associate department head for Electrical Engineering, and as head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). In 2004, he was named the Fariborz Maseeh Professor of Emerging Technology, a title he held until he became president. He remains a mentor and advocate for students, serving each year as an advisor of first-year undergraduates.

In 2022, the National Academy of Engineering honored him with the Simon Ramo Founders Award "for pioneering leadership to reimagine and advance higher education university-based entrepreneurship, the future of computing, the future of work, sustainability and semiconductor technology."

Dr. Reif received the degree of Ingeniero Eléctrico from Universidad de Carabobo, Valencia, Venezuela, and served for a year as an assistant professor at Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas. He earned his doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University, where he spent a year as a visiting assistant professor. After moving to MIT, Dr. Reif held the Analog Devices Career Development Professorship in EECS and an IBM Faculty Fellowship from MIT’s Center for Materials Science and Engineering. He received a United States Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1984.