Rebecca M. Henderson was named the John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University. The chair is named for a former dean of the business school and his wife. Since 2009, Professor Henderson has been serving as the Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management at Harvard Business School. Previously, she was the Eastman Kodak Professor of Management at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. Henderson is a graduate of MIT, where she majored in mechanical engineering. She holds a doctorate in business economics from Harvard University.
The University Professorships, first established in 1935, are chairs intended for “individuals of distinction, working on the frontiers of knowledge, and in such a way as to cross the conventional boundaries of the specialties.” There are now 24 University Professors at Harvard. Only three are women.