Robert van der Hilst, Schlumberger Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has announced his decision to step down as Chair of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the end of this academic year. A search committee will meet later this spring to recommend candidates for Van der Hilst’s successor.
“Rob is an accomplished seismologist whose images of Earth’s internal structure have advanced our understanding of how tectonic plates move, how mantle convection works, and why some regions of Earth are hot spots for seismic and geothermal activity,” says Nergis Mavalvala, Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of astrophysics and dean of the MIT School of Science. “As an academic leader, Rob has been a staunch champion of the department’s cross-cutting research and education missions, particularly in climate science, which is big at MIT. His commitment to diversity and community has made the department—and indeed MIT—a better place to do our best work.
“For 12 years, it has been an honor to lead this department and work with all members of our community—faculty, staff, and students,” says Van der Hilst. “EAPS is at the forefront of climate science research at MIT, as well as Earth and planetary sciences and studies of the co-evolution of life and the changing environment.”
Among his other leadership roles on campus, Van der Hilst most recently served as co-chair of the faculty review committee for MIT’s Climate Grand Challenges, in which EAPS researchers secured nine finalists and two funded flagship projects. He also serves on the Institute’s Climate Nucleus to help enact MIT’s Fast Forward: Climate Action Plan for the Decade.
In more than a decade as department head, one of Van der Hilst’s major initiatives has been the development, financing and construction of the Tina and Hamid Moghadam Building, which is fast approaching completion next to Building 54. The $35 million, LEED Platinum Building 55 will be a vital center and a showcase for environmental and climate research on the MIT campus. With help from the Institute and generous donors, the renovations and expansion will add classrooms, meeting and event spaces, and bring headquarters offices for EAPS, the joint MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science, and MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI) together , all under one roof.
He also helped secure a generous gift that funded the Norman C. Rasmussen Laboratory for Climate Research in Building 4, as well as the Peter H. Stone and Paola Malanotte Stone Professorship, now held by distinguished atmospheric scientist Arlene Fiore.
On the academic side of the house, Van der Hilst and his counterpart in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), Ali Jadbabaie, JR East Professor and Chair of the CEE Department, helped develop MIT’s new bachelor’s degree in climate systems science and engineering (course 1- 12), jointly offered by EAPS and CEE.
As part of MIT’s commitment to helping the global response to climate change, the new degree program is designed to train the next generation of leaders and provide a fundamental understanding of both the Earth system and engineering principles—as well as an understanding of the human and institutional behaviors that relate to climate challenges.
In addition to climate research, Van der Hilst’s tenure at the helm of the department has seen many research breakthroughs and successes: from high-profile NASA missions with EAPS science leadership, including the most recent launch of the Psyche mission and the successful return of an asteroid sample from OSIRIS. -REx, to develop next-generation models capable of describing Earth systems with increasing detail and accuracy. Van der Hilst helped make such scientific progress possible through major improvements to experimental facilities across the department and more generally through his mission to double the number of scholarships available to EAPS graduate students.
“By reducing the strengths and inequities created by our disciplinary groups, we have been able to foster collaborations that enable faculty, students, and researchers to explore fundamental scientific questions in new ways that expand our understanding of the natural world—with profound implications for helping guide communities and policymakers toward a sustainable future ,” says Van der Hilst.
Community focused
In 2019, Van der Hilst began looking ahead to the department’s 40th anniversary in 2023 and commissioned a number of working groups to review the department’s past and present and rethink its future. Led by faculty, staff, and students, Task Force 2023 was a year-long exercise in data collection and community reflection that broadly focused on three main areas: image, visibility, and relevance; External synergies: collaborations and partnerships across campus; and departmental organization and cohesion. Despite the disruption of the pandemic, the resulting reports became a detailed blueprint for EAPS to build on its strengths and begin making systemic improvements in areas such as higher education, external messaging and recognition and belonging for administrative and research staff.
In addition to helping the department celebrate its 40th anniversary with a celebration this coming spring, Van der Hilst will oversee the dedication of the Moghadam Building, including the renaming of lecture hall 54-100 for Dixie Lee Bryant, the first recipient (female or male) in geology from MIT in 1891.
As head of the department, faculty renewal and retention were key areas of focus for Van der Hilst. In addition to improvements in the faculty search process, he was responsible for the appointment of 20 new faculty members, and in the process moved the gender ratio from one-fifth to one-third of faculty who identify as female; in 2013 he also oversaw the development and implementation of a successful junior faculty mentoring program within EAPS.
Van der Hilst has also made great strides to improve diversity, equity and inclusion within the department in other ways. In 2016, he created the inaugural EAPS Diversity Council (now the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee), and in 2020, made EAPS the first department at MIT to appoint an Associate Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, based on Associate Professor David. McGee to lead ongoing community dialogues and initiatives supporting improvements in membership, achievement, belonging, engagement and accountability.
With the leadership of McGee and EAPS students, Van der Hilst fostered EAPS’s response to calls for social justice leadership and participation in national initiatives such as the American Geophysical Union’s Unlearning Racism in Geoscience program, and helped navigate the changes brought about by Covid-19. pandemic while maintaining a sense of community.
Seismic shift
After he steps down from his current role, Van der Hilst will have more time to catch up on research aimed at understanding Earth’s deep internal structure and evolution. With research collaborators, he developed seismic imaging methods to probe the Earth’s interior from sedimentary basins near its surface to the core-mantle interface some 2,800 kilometers below the surface. Recently wrote a The nature of communication paper with doctoral student Shujuan Mao PhD ’21 on a pilot application that uses seismometers as a cost-effective way to monitor and map groundwater fluctuations to measure groundwater supplies.
Before becoming head of the department, Van der Hilst served as director of the Earth Resources Laboratory (ERL). During his eight years as director, he helped integrate across disciplines, departments, and schools, transforming ERL into MIT’s premier home for research and education focused on subsurface energy resources.
Van der Hilst was named a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 1997 and became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014. Before being appointed Schlumberger Professor in 2011, Van der Hilst held the Cecil and Ida Green Professorship. He has received many awards, including the Doornbos Memorial Prize from the International Association for Seismology and Earth Physics, the AGU James B. Macelwan Medal, a Packard Fellowship, and the VICI Innovative Research Award from the Netherlands National Science Foundation.
Van der Hilst received his PhD in geophysics from Utrecht University in 1990. After postdoctoral research at the University of Leeds and the Australian National University, he joined the MIT faculty in 1996. He was Director of the ERL from 2004 to 2012, then appointed Head of the EAPS Department, after Maria Zuber, EA Griswold Professor of Geophysics, MIT Vice President for Research and Presidential Advisor for Science and Technology Policy.
