Maria T Zuber

She is the E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and Vice President for Research at MIT, where she oversees the MIT Lincoln Laboratory and more than a dozen interdisciplinary research laboratories and centers, including the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. She chairs the National Science Board, having been appointed as a member in 2013. She serves as a senior research scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), holding leadership roles associated with scientific experiments or instrumentation on nine NASA missions. Her research bridges planetary geophysics and the technology of space-based laser and radio systems. She is the first woman to lead a science department at MIT and the first to lead a NASA planetary mission. In 2002, Discover magazine named Zuber one of the 50 most important women in science, and in 2008 she was named to the U.S. News & World Report/Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership List of America’s Best Leaders.