L. Rafael Reif

L. Rafael Reif is the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As the Institute’s seventeenth president, since 2012, he has fostered the growth of MIT’s nonprofit online platform edX and helped MIT pioneer the role that online learning and credentials play in shaping the future of higher education. He also created the MIT Innovation Initiative; established the Environmental Solutions Initiative, the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab, and the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab; issued the MIT Plan for Action on Climate Change; and launched the Engine, a “tough tech” accelerator.

Additionally, at MIT he is focused on the Kendall Square Initiative, a redevelopment plan powered by MIT; the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab; the MIT Quest for Intelligence; and the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, the most significant reshaping of the institute since the 1950s. Dr. Reif has been a member of MIT’s electrical engineering faculty since 1980. He holds a BS from the University of Carabobo (Venezuela) and an MS and PhD from Stanford University.