Blackmer received his bachelor's degree from Harvard College where he graduated magna cum laude in history and literature. He continued his studies at Harvard University where he received a masterâs in regional studies on the Soviet Union and a PhD in political science.
He began his career at MIT as executive director, and eventually served as assistant director, of the Center for International Studies (CIS). The Center was created in 1951 to aid the United States in its Cold War battle against the Soviet Union. Blackmer later chronicled the Center's beginnings in a fascinating book, The MIT Center for International Studies: The Founding Years 1951 to 1969, to mark the Center's 50th anniversary.
âDon was a fine scholar. He wrote a widely cited book on the international relations of the Italian Communist Party, and co-authored a book with Max Millikan on US foreign aid. He also published on the French communist party and on the Soviet Union. But, on his own account, scholarship was not his primary calling. He was an institution builder. In 1956, he turned down a job offer to work as an assistant to McGeorge Bundy at Harvard, to come down river to MIT to serve as a deputy to Max Millikan and Walt Rostowâthe dynamic and powerful founders of the MIT Center for International Studies. As executive director of the young CIS, he made it possible for them and those he helped them recruit to light up the scholarly landscape,â said Richard Samuels, director of CIS and Ford International Professor of Political Science....
Dan Huttenlocher SM â84, PhD â88, a seasoned builder and leader of new academic entities at Cornell University, has been named as the first dean of the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. He will assume his new post this summer.
A member of Cornellâs 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 Cornellâs Faculty of Computing and Information Science.
Huttenlocher returns to MIT with widely published scholarship in computer science, as well as a strongly interdisciplinary approach to computing. He also brings extensive background in industry: Huttenlocher served for 12 years as a scientist at Xeroxâs Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) before leaving to co-found 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....
Nine fast-moving megatrends are shaping where our world will be in 11 years....
Jean Pierre de Monchaux, an idealistic and optimistic planner and architect who served as dean of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning from 1981 to 1992, passed away on April 30, after living with Parkinsonâs disease for 20 years. He was 81.
De Monchaux, also known as John, came to MIT after many yearsâ professional experience in the United States, the United Kingdom, South America, Australia, and Southeast Asia. His international upbringing in Dublin, Montreal, New York City, Bogota, Sydney, and London produced lasting memories of life onboard the ocean liners and tramp steamers that ferried him between these places as a boy and young man.
His diverse background informed his vision of urban planning as a conciliatory practice of listening and learning between constituencies and professionals. He understood all of the worldâs cities as neighborhoods of a single global village â as shared places of possibility, and of messy meaning, that transcended false notions of order and border....
