Five Women Join the Faculty in the School of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The School of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has hired eight new faculty members. Five of the new hires are women.

Olivia Corridin has joined the faculty in the department of biology. She joined MIT’s Whitehead Institute as a Fellow in July 2016. Her research concentrates on how genetic variants contribute to disease. Dr. Corradin completed a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Marquette University in Milwaukee in 2010 and a Ph.D. in genetics from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 2016.

Arlene Fiore is the inaugural Peter H. Stone and Paola Malanotte Stone Professor in the department of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences. She seeks to understand processes that control two-way interactions between air pollutants and the climate system, as well as the sensitivity of atmospheric chemistry to different chemical, physical, and biological sources. Dr. Fiore previously was on the faculty at Columbia University. After earning a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. from Harvard University, Dr. Fiore held a research scientist position at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey.

Danna Freedman was appointed the Frederick George Keyes Professor of Chemistry. She was a tenured professor of chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Her research leverages inorganic chemistry to solve problems in physics. Professor Freedman received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, then conducted postdoctoral research at MIT.

Kristin Knouse is a new assistant professor of biology and in the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She aims to understand how tissues sense and respond to damage, with the goal of developing new approaches for regenerative medicine. Dr. Knouse received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Duke University in 2010 and then enrolled in a joint program with MIT and Harvard, where she earned a Ph.D. in biology and a medical doctorate.

Lina Necib is a new assistant professor of physics. She is an astroparticle physicist exploring the origin of dark matter through a combination of simulations and observational data that correlate the dynamics of dark matter with that of the stars in the Milky Way. She earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from Boston University in 2012 and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from MIT.