Volume 115 >> Issue 46 : Tuesday, October 3, 1995

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White to Give Compton Lectures

Robert M. White ScD '49, head of the National Academy of Engineering from 1983 to last June, has been appointed MIT's Karl Taylor Compton Lecturer for the 1995-96 academic year.

As the Compton Lecturer, White will present a series of lectures throughout the year on the role of research universities in the United States in the upcoming years.

Along with the lecture series, the Compton appointment is also "an opportunity for leading scientists and engineers in the U.S. to pursue some research and studies of their own away from their principle workplace," said Professor Ronald G. Prinn ScD '71, director of the Center for Global Change Science, who will serve as one of White's hosts at the Institute. White will conduct research in the field of environmental science and engineering.

White will have an office in Building E40. White's other host if Professor of Management Henry D. Jacoby, who heads the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.

Prinn said that he is delighted that White was offered the lectureship. White is looking forward to his time at MIT, Prinn said.

The Compton Lectureship was established in 1957 in honor of Karl Taylor Compton, the Institute's 13th president. Compton successfully guided MIT through the Great Depression and World War II as president from 1930-1948 and as chairman of the Corporation from 1948-1954.

The list of past Compton Lecturers includes Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics Niels Bohr, former U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Linus Pauling, and John Armstrong, former vice president for science and technology at IBM.