Duane Boning named vice provost for international activities

Duane Boning ’84, SM ’86, PhD ’91 has been named the next MIT vice provost for international activities (VPIA), effective Sept. 1. Boning, the Clarence J. LeBel Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT, succeeds Japan Steel Industry Professor Richard Lester, who has served as VPIA since 2015.

The VPIA provides intellectual leadership, guidance, and oversight of MIT’s international policies and engagements. In this role, Boning will conduct strategic reviews of the portfolio of international activities, advise the administration on global strategic priorities, and work with academic unit leaders and researchers to develop major new global programs and projects. Boning will also help coordinate faculty and administrative reviews of certain international projects to identify and manage U.S. national security, human rights, and economic and other risks.

“Duane has an exceptional record of accomplishment and will provide the forward-looking and collaborative leadership needed to guide the Institute’s international engagements and policies,” says Provost Cynthia Barnhart. “I am thrilled to welcome him to the role.”

Boning’s ties to MIT are long and lasting, first receiving his SB, SM and PhD degrees in EECS at the Institute, in 1984, 1986 and 1991, respectively. His tenure includes several campus leadership positions, including as associate department head of EECS from 2004 to 2011, and associate chair of the faculty from 2019 to 2021. He is the associate director for computation and CAD for the Microsystems Technology Laboratories, where he leads the MTL Statistical Metrology Group.

In 2016, Boning became the engineering faculty co-director of the MIT Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program. With LGO Sloan faculty co-director Retsef Levi, Boning led the formation of MIT’s Machine Intelligence for Manufacturing & Operations (MIMO), which extends LGO activities in machine intelligence through additional industrial research projects, seminars, and workshops.

His experiences as a researcher and an educator have helped him appreciate the benefits of MIT’s international collaboration efforts, Boning says. “Taking on the VPIA role is about me wanting to continue and amplify that appreciation into the future, where I think it’s going to become even more important for MIT to remain and be engaged in the world.”

Among his previous leadership roles in international collaborations, Boning served as faculty director of the MIT/Masdar Institute Cooperative Program from 2011 to 2018, and director/faculty lead of the MIT Skoltech Initiative from 2011 to 2013.

Boning says the office of the VPIA can act as a driver and initiator of international engagement, but he looks forward to being a “a facilitator or convener, a coalescing point to find out where there are international opportunities and to bring people to them.”

“Finding ways to support higher MIT institutional priorities through international activities will be important,” he adds, citing as an example of these priorities the Climate Project at MIT launched by President Sally Kornbluth in 2023. “We will be puzzling out how our international components can best contribute to that and other initiatives.”

Lester will step into the role of interim vice president of climate (VPC), reporting to Kornbluth, while the search for a permanent VPC continues. Lester expects to complete his interim role and return to his MIT research activities at the end of the calendar year.

Formative experiences

Boning’s participation in the Cambridge-MIT Institute was one of his first experiences in international research and education. “It was eye-opening, seeing, ‘oh, you mean they don’t have weekly problem sets here?’” he jokes. “It showed me very different approaches to education that can also work, and how I might try some of those ideas in my own context.”

He looks back on the Cambridge experience and later work in manufacturing research with the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology “with fondness in my heart,” he says. “It enabled me to see how international activities can benefit my own research and the research of my colleagues around me.”

His leadership in larger programs such as LGO and the MIT/Masdar program taught him the importance of creating and recruiting for MIT’s international collaborations, “by finding appropriate ways to connect with the passions of MIT faculty,” Boning says.

Boning says he will also draw on his experiences in departmental and faculty-level governance to guide him in his new role. “I recognize how broad MIT is and how widespread the different practices and cultures are in different schools and departments and programs across MIT,” he explains. “It’s given me a broader appreciation of faculty, staff, administration — everybody across all corners of the Institute and how they contribute to MIT’s mission.”

Future goals

Barnhart praised Lester, the outgoing VPIA, saying that “Richard’s body of work as vice provost for international activities is impressive and impactful. He has applied his commendable leadership skills, sharp intellect, and broad vision to transforming the ways MIT engages and collaborates with partners across the globe.”

She noted that Lester had expanded the reach of MIT’s research and education missions through numerous international collaborations, especially in Africa and Asia. As convenor and co-chair of the MIT China Strategy Group, Lester led the preparation and implementation of an influential November 2022 report on how MIT should approach its interactions and collaborations with China.

Boning cites the China report as an excellent example of how the VPIA can identify best practices and address head-on the values and complexities of international collaboration. “We have to live up to the reputation of the mission of MIT in intellectual development and freedom, while also recognizing that there are risks that need to be managed and choices that need to be made,” he says.

Boning’s field of expertise — semiconductor and photonics manufacturing and design — has become a topic of intense interest and attention in innovation and economic circles, and he intends to stay engaged fully in research as a result. As VPIA, he may have to step back from some of his teaching, however, “and that is the piece I will miss the most. I will miss any semester when I am not in the classroom with students,” he says.

“But I’m curious about what the future is going to bring — boundless new opportunities, new technologies, AI — and how MIT can best facilitate the wise application of these for the world’s problems,” Boning adds. “I’m looking forward to lots of conversations with faculty colleagues and the whole community around what MIT can be doing, what we should be doing, and how we can best do it to support MIT’s mission through international activities.”