Dimitris Bertsimas Appointed Vice Provost for Open Learning
Dear members of the MIT community,
I write to announce that, beginning September 1, Dimitris Bertsimas PhD '88 will be the Institute’s new Vice Provost for Open Learning. Dimitris, who is the Boeing Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management, will be responsible for working with our community and the Open Learning team to advance Open Learning’s mission. I am thrilled that Dimitris has agreed to serve the Institute in this capacity.
An impressive record of service and impact
Since earning his PhD in operations research and applied mathematics from MIT in 1988, Dimitris has been a member of the MIT Sloan faculty working in the areas of optimization and machine learning and associated applications, including in health care and medicine. Dimitris served as co-director of the Operations Research Center from 2006 to 2019, during which time he developed and launched the master of business analytics program. This program annually receives more than 1,000 applications for 80 positions and has maintained the top spot in global rankings since its inception.
Dimitris is also the innovator behind “Analytics Edge,” an MITx course that has attracted hundreds of thousands of online learners. Passionate about teaching, research, entrepreneurship, and especially working with doctoral students, Dimitris has supervised 97 completed doctoral theses. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a recipient of numerous research and teaching awards, including the John von Neumann theory prize from INFORMS. Finally, Dimitris’s work extends beyond the Institute to industry: he is the co-founder of ten analytics companies.
Vice provost for open learning role
As the Vice Provost for Open Learning, Dimitris will work with faculty and staff across MIT to shape Open Learning’s next chapter. He will oversee Open Learning’s product offerings – including OpenCourseWare, MITx courses, MicroMasters programs, xPRO courses, MIT Horizon, the Jameel World Education Lab, MIT pK–12, and others – as well as Open Learning’s infrastructure, finances, and operations.
Dimitris will be a member of my leadership team as well as Academic Council, and he will work closely with the school and college deans, faculty, and staff to advance research into the science of learning with the goal of innovating, studying, and scaling up digital technologies on campus and for the benefit of the world.
With appreciation
I’d like to express deep appreciation to Eric Grimson for his two years at the helm as interim Vice President for Open Learning. Among his many accomplishments, he recruited and appointed talented faculty to Open Learning, expanded outreach to and partnerships with the schools and the college, developed platforms to share MIT’s learning with the world, and advanced research examining AI’s impact on education. After September 1, Eric will return full time to his role as Chancellor for Academic Advancement.
I am also grateful to the search advisory group chair Duane Boning and the group’s members for leading a thoughtful and extensive search process. Their work informed my decision to select Dimitris. They believe he will “get big things done,” which is exactly what I think we need in a moment when AI is driving rapid transformations in education.
Please join me in congratulating and thanking Dimitris for taking on this next chapter of leadership and service to MIT.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Barnhart
Provost
Members of the Vice Provost for Open Learning Search Advisory Group
Chair
Duane Boning, Clarence J. LeBel Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Members
Dimitris Bertsimas,* Boeing Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management
Parag Pathak, Class of 1922 Professor of Economics
Albert Saiz, Daniel Rose Associate Professor of Urban Economics and Real Estate
Susan Silbey, Leon and Anne Goldberg Professor of Humanities, Sociology and Anthropology; and Professor of Behavioral and Policy Sciences, Sloan School of Management
Pawan Sinha, Professor of Vision and Computational Neuroscience
Gigliola Staffilani, Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of Mathematics
Antonio Torralba, Delta Electronics Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
*Dimitris served on the committee until he was identified as a candidate.