Boning to serve as director of the MIT Masdar Program

Associate Provost Martin Schmidt has announced that Duane Boning, professor electrical engineering and computer science, has agreed to serve as director of the MIT Masdar Program. In this role, Boning will help strengthen the growing rich collaboration in education and research between MIT, the Masdar Institute and Abu Dhabi.

Schmidt, in an e-mail to associated faculty and researchers, said that Boning, as director, will build on the assistance MIT has provided to the Masdar Institute, including establishment of a range of new graduate programs at Masdar spanning topics of energy, smart grid, materials and microsystems engineering, that have been successfully launched under the leadership of Professor Fred Moavenzadeh, previous director of the MIT Masdar Program who has taken a leave of absence to serve as the president of Masdar Institute. Boning will work with the Masdar Program staff at MIT under the Technology Development Program (TDP); with MIT faculty engaged in curricular development and joint research with Masdar; with Masdar Institute students interacting with MIT; and with Masdar Institute leadership to explore new collaboration opportunities.

In addition to a strong administrative background, Boning brings to this role experiences with several international programs at MIT. Over the last two years, he has worked with the Masdar Program and faculty at MIT to help define and ramp up the microsystems engineering graduate degree program at Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi. He has recently contributed to the assessment of MIT-Russia research and education engagement opportunities. Boning has also participated in the Singapore-MIT Alliance since 2004, through SMA1 and SMA2 programs in manufacturing science and technology, and he served as co-director for education in the Cambridge-MIT Initiative from 2003 to 2004.

Boning will continue as associate head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, a position he has held since 2004. He has also served as associate director of the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories from 1998 to 2004, and as chair of the MIT Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid (CUAFA) from 2008 to 2010.