Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and science.

"MIT" redirects here. For other uses, see MIT (disambiguation).

Motto

Mens et Manus (Latin)

"Mind and Hand"^[1]

Private land-grant research university

April 10, 1861 (1861-04-10)

William Barton Rogers

NECHE

$23.5 billion (2023)^[3]

Melissa Nobles

Sally Kornbluth

Cynthia Barnhart

1,069^[4]

11,858 (2022–23)^[5]

4,657 (2022–23)^[5]

7,201 (2022–23)^[5]

Cambridge

Massachusetts

United States

42°21′35″N 71°5′31″W / 42.35972°N 71.09194°W

Midsize city^[7], 166 acres (67.2 ha)^[6]

The Tech

Cardinal red and steel gray^[8]

Engineers

Tim the Beaver^[9]

web.mit.edu

Founded in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, MIT adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. MIT is one of three private land-grant universities in the United States, the others being Cornell University and Tuskegee University. The institute has an urban campus that extends more than a mile (1.6 km) alongside the Charles River, and encompasses a number of major off-campus facilities such as the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the Bates Center, and the Haystack Observatory, as well as affiliated laboratories such as the Broad and Whitehead Institutes.

As of October 2023, 101 Nobel laureates,^[10] 26 Turing Award winners, and 8 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT as alumni, faculty members, or researchers.^[11] In addition, 58 National Medal of Science recipients, 29 National Medals of Technology and Innovation recipients, 50 MacArthur Fellows,^[12] 83 Marshall Scholars,^[13] 41 astronauts,^[14] 16 Chief Scientists of the US Air Force, and 1 foreign head of state have been affiliated with MIT. The institute also has a strong entrepreneurial culture and MIT alumni have founded or co-founded many notable companies.^[15]^[16] MIT is a member of the Association of American Universities.^[17]

Academic rankings

– Robert Weinberg discovered genetic basis of human cancer.^[314]

Oncogene

– David Baltimore independently isolated, in 1970 at MIT, two RNA tumor viruses: R-MLV and again RSV.^[315]

Reverse transcription

– Samuel Cate Prescott and William Lyman Underwood from 1895 to 1898. Done for canning of food. Applications later found useful in medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics.^[316]

Thermal death time

– Steven Weinberg proposed the electroweak unification theory, which gave rise to the modern formulation of the Standard Model, in 1967 at MIT.^[317]

Electroweak interaction

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, ScD 1963 (MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics)

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, SM 1972 (MIT Sloan School of Management)

President of Colombia (1986–1990) Virgilio Barco Vargas, SB 1943 (MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering)

Former Federal Reserve Bank chairman and 2022 Nobel Laureate Ben Bernanke, PhD 1979 (MIT Department of Economics)

Economics Nobel laureate Esther Duflo, PhD 1999 (MIT Department of Economics), also an MIT professor^[421]

Physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, SB 1939 (MIT Department of Physics)^[422]

Astronaut and USAF Colonel Michael Fincke, SB 1989 (MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics), SB 1989 (MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences)