Christine Ortiz is a higher education leader, board director, nonprofit trustee, professor, engineer, former dean, and social entrepreneur. Dr. Ortiz has over 25 years of experience in higher education and a passion for emerging integrative research, transformative pedagogies, social mobility and impact. As the Morris Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she is an internationally recognized academic who has made pioneering advancements in the areas of biotechnology and biomaterials, nanotechnology, design of novel and multifunctional materials, multiscale mechanics of materials, multiscale computational modeling of materials, advanced and additive manufacturing, surface science, coatings, and tribology,socioresilient and sustainable approaches to materials design, and socially-directed science and technology. She has given invited talks in over 40 countries, has over 200 scholarly publications (including features on the covers of the journals Science, Nature Materials, The Journal of Structural Biology), supervised the research projects of more than 100 students from 10 different academic disciplines, and received more than 30 national and international honors including the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering which was awarded to her at the White House by U.S. President George W. Bush and prestigious Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship. Dr. Ortiz has led large cross-disciplinary teams and research grants which have included engineers, scientists, physicians, architects, historians, linguists, civic designers, and urban planners. Dr. Ortiz has been served on over 50 scientific advisory boards and expert panels collectively overseeing in excess of $200M in research funds.
Dr. Ortiz served as Dean for Graduate Education at MIT between 2010-2016 where she supported more than 7,000 graduate students from 100+ countries enrolled in 45 graduate degree programs in 5 academic schools. Inclusive collaboration across schools, academic departments, administrative offices, and stakeholder groups was a hallmark of her tenure as dean and resulted in the development and implementation of a five-year strategic plan. She was the founding principal investigator of the MIT University Center of Exemplary Mentoring sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, created an infrastructure for advancing the funding acquisition of graduate fellowships, and led the development of innovative global education and research opportunities (e.g. internships in international startup ecosystems, cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary programming, global community-based participatory research, etc.). During this time, she served on the board of directors of the Council for Graduate Schools and was invited to speak worldwide including, for example, at the League of European Research Universities (Zurich, Switzerland), the European Union Council for Doctoral Education (Reykjavík, Iceland), the Vitae Researcher Development International Conference (Manchester, UK), the Association of Chinese Graduate Schools (Hangzhou, China), and the Workshop for Higher Education for the 21st Century (Kingdom of Bahrain).
In 2016, Dr. Ortiz founded Station1 (www.station1.org). Station1 is a startup nonprofit higher education institution based in Massachusetts that has developed a new model of frontier learning and research — socially-directed science and technology. Based upon a foundation of inclusion, equality, and justice this model integrates science, technology, engineering, and math with humanistic fields and the social sciences in order to interrogate, understand, and shape technologically-driven societal impact towards more just, ethical, and sustainable outcomes. Station1 designs and delivers transformative education, research, and innovation programs and leads higher education collective impact systems change initiatives. Core to this work has been broadening participation for students of color, those from low income and immigrant backgrounds, and those who are first generation to college. By assembling a cross-disciplinary team of educators and researchers, this work has resulted in a stream of innovations including, for example, design and construction of a novel learning space in a historic wool mill, a digitally-enabled curriculum on socially-directed science and technology that incorporates inclusive pedagogies, active learning, and local-global social context, new forms of cross-sector partnership and experiential learning with startup companies and within innovation ecosystems across the U.S., the development of shared leadership models and a multi-institutional collective impact initiative (eight (8) leading STEM higher education institutions with members overseeing thirty (30) programs and 30,000 students), and new multi-investigator cross-disciplinary collaborative research projects on socially-directed science and technology (e.g. socioresilient infrastructure, socially-directed circular materials, computationally-driven origins of human language, etc.). Station1 has garnered the support from over 80 individuals, foundations, nonprofit organizations, and corporate sponsors for example, the ECMC Foundation, the Analog Devices Corporate Foundation, the Siegel Family Endowment, the Hopper-Dean Foundation, LabCentral (one of the largest biotechnology startup accelerators in the U.S.), Craig Newmark Philanthropies, The Amelia Peabody Foundation, The Spencer Foundation, The Abbot and Dorothy H. Stevens Foundation, New Profit (venture philanthropy firm), and many more. Since this time, Dr. Ortiz has received hundreds of speaking invitations from all over the world and accepted invitations to speak at The United Nations Conference on Frontier Technologies (New York City),The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (Paris, France), the League of European Research Universities (Edinburgh, Scotland), Semesp (a national organization for Brazilian Higher Education) (São Paulo, Brazil), Bankinter Foundation Future Trends Forum (Madrid, Spain), Edtech Sweden (Stockholm, Sweden), Innovative Europe (Lodz, Poland), Workshop on the Future of Higher Education (Brisbane, Australia), Eisenhower Global Conference on the Future of Work (Cartagena, Colombia), The National Science Foundation (NSF) agency-wide lecture on the Future of Education, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) plenary on socially-directed research, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Future of STEM Education Conference, among other venues. Dr. Ortiz has an extensive professional network with over 30,000 followers on social media.
Dr. Ortiz also participates in board service across sectors and has experience in executive leadership, corporate governance, financial / capital allocation, government and regulatory affairs, international business, strategic planning, digital transformation, human capital management, environmental-social-governance, corporate social responsibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion marketing and branding, communications, enterprise risk management, social entrepreneurship, organizational culture and development, cross-sector collaboration (academic, nonprofit, industrial), stakeholder, civic, and community engagement. She serves as a corporate board director for the publicly traded water infrastructure and technology company, Mueller Water Products (NYSA MWA, Market Cap $1.922B) and a trustee of the Essex County Community Foundation (private foundation, assets $97M, region covering 34 cities). She has served as Secretary and Board of Directors, National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Science and Engineering (The National GEM Consortium) (national nonprofit organization, assets $7.8M), on the Board of Directors, Materials Research Society (international nonprofit scientific society with assets $15.5M and 14,000 members), and the Board of Directors, Council for Graduate Schools (national nonprofit organization with assets $15M, membership includes 500 universities). She also served as a regional accreditation commissioner for the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, New England Association of Schools and Colleges which reviews and oversees all aspects of approximately 250 colleges and universities.
Dr. Ortiz received a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering with a minor in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Cornell University.
