Since January 2023, Sally Kornbluth has served as MIT’s 18th president. In her Inaugural address, she urged the MIT community to tackle the interlocking challenges the world faces today, especially climate change, with renewed urgency. A cell biologist, Kornbluth joined Duke University’s biology faculty in 1994, and in 2006 was named vice dean for basic science at the Duke School of Medicine. She was selected in 2014 to serve as provost, the university’s chief academic officer. Her eight-year tenure won her a reputation as a brilliant administrator with a gift for advancing the university’s intellectual priorities, a creative problem-solver, and a leading advocate of faculty excellence and student wellbeing. Among other honors, in 2012, Kornbluth received the Basic Science Research Mentoring Award from the Duke School of Medicine and in 2013, the Distinguished Faculty Award from the Duke Medical Alumni Association. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.