Robert A. Muh Alumni Award

Gov. Tom Wolf (PhD ’81, Political Science) is a graduate of MIT’s PhD program in the Department of Political Science. After serving as Pennsylvania’s secretary of revenue from 2007-2008, Wolf was elected as the state’s 47th governor. He served two terms, holding office from January 2015 through January 2023. During his time as governor, Wolf prioritized investing more in education, expanding access to health care, criminal justice reform, and protecting the environment. Wolf led the state through a period of tumultuous national political division, as well as the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Rt. Hon. David W. Miliband (SM ’90, Political Science) has served as President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) since 2013. From 2007 to 2010, Miliband served as the youngest U.K. Foreign Secretary in three decades, driving advancements in human rights and representing the United Kingdom throughout the world.

Christina Romer (PhD ’85, Economics) is the Class of 1957-Garff B. Wilson Professor of Economics at Berkeley. She joined the Berkeley faculty in 1988 and was promoted to full professor in 1993. Professor Romer is co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and is a member of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of California, Berkeley.

Carlos Prieto (SB ’58, Engineering and Economics), Mexican-born and MIT-educated, is one of the most respected cellists in the world, regularly premiering works composed especially for him by Latin American, North American and European composers.

Joseph E. Aoun (PhD ’82, Linguistics) is a distinguished scholar in linguistics, and the seventh president of Northeastern University. Prior to taking on the presidency at Northeastern, Aoun was Dean of the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences at the University of Southern California. He joined USC in 1982 in the Department of Linguistics, and during his time at USC served as head of the academic Senate. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Aoun was awarded the Masters Oriental Languages and Literature, Saint Joseph University, Beirut; Diploma of Advanced Study General and Theoretical Linguistics, University of Paris VIII; and a Ph.D.in Linguistics, from MIT. In 2006, the French government presented him with the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques.

Robert C. Merton (PhD ’70, Economics) is the School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Now a University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, Merton was the George Fisher Baker Professor of Business Administration (1988-98) and John and Natty McArthur University Professor (1998-2010) at the Harvard Business School. He served previously on the finance faculty of the Sloan School (1970 -1988).

Michael Kaiser (SM ’77, Management) received his Master’s degree in management from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and his Bachelor’s degree in economics magna cum laude, from Brandeis University. He has been an Adjunct Professor of Arts Administration at New York University, He received the Dance Magazine Award in 2001, Capezio Award in 2002, Helen Hayes Washington Post Award for Innovative Leadership in the Theater Community in 2003, the St. Petersburg 300 Medal in 2004, Washingtonian of the Year in 2004, a U.S. Department of State Citation in 2005, the Blacks in Dance Award in 2005, and was the first American to receive China’s “Award for Cultural Exchange” in 2005.

George Pratt Shultz (PhD ’49, Economics) is an economist and Republican presidential adviser known best as the Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan. Shultz graduated from Princeton in 1942 with an economics degree, served in the Marine Corps Reserves, and earned a Ph.D. in Industrial Economics from MIT.

Ned Block (SB ’64, Physics and Humanities), a former Chair of MIT Philosophy, earned his Ph.D at Harvard and is the Silver Professor of Philosophy, Psychology, and Neural Science at NYU. He works in philosophy of mind and foundations of neuroscience and cognitive science. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of Language and Information, a Sloan Foundation Fellow, a faculty member at two National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institutes and two Summer Seminars.