Highlights from MIT Sloan Reunion 2024

Thousands of graduating students, alumni, and their families came to campus at the end of May for the 2024 commencement ceremonies and Reunion celebrations. Among the returning graduates were 1,404 Sloanies and their guests who attended MIT Sloan Reunion 2024.

From networking to work

On Thursday, May 30, as the Institute community gathered in Killian Court for the OneMIT Commencement ceremony and graduating students from individual degree programs attended their own celebrations, MIT Sloan Reunion 2024 kicked off with an afternoon of programming by the MIT Sloan Career Development Office (CDO), the MIT Sloan Office of Admissions, and various faculty members.

During the CDO workshop “Getting A.I.R. (Advice, Insight and Referrals),” Carla Akalarian (Executive Career Coach, CDO) and Shauna LaFauci Barry (Senior Associate Director, Alumni Engagement & Coaching, CDO) facilitated an hour-long session of structured networking. Meanwhile, in “SCOTUS Ruling and MIT Sloan’s Response,” Dawna Levenson, SB ’83, SM ’84, (Assistant Dean, Admissions) provided alumni with an overview of the 2023 ruling regarding Affirmative Action and its effects on the school’s evaluation process for admissions.

In back-to-back sessions, MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research Co-Directors Emilio J. Castilla (NTU Professor of Management; Professor of Work and Organization Studies) and Erin Kelly (Sloan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies) gave overviews of their recent research. In “The Unfulfilled Promise of Meritocracy in Organizations,” Castilla discussed his work on merit, how different leaders define it in various contexts, and its effects on biases. In “Work Design for Health,” Kelly spoke about work as “social determinant of health” and how managers can redesign work to support their employees’ wellbeing.

All things AI

Alumni and guests returned for more graduation ceremonies and celebrations—as well as two full days of MIT Sloan Reunion 2024 sessions and class meetups—on Friday and Saturday. Many panels and speakers were concerned about the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in various business and educational settings.

Many attended “AI in Healthcare: The Generative Algorithm Will See You Now” with moderator Dr. Carl Dahlberg, SF ’17; and panelists Dr. Leo Anthony Celi, SM ’09; Leonard Evenchik, SB ’77, SM ’79; Tim Valicenti, MBAn ’18, MBA ’24; and Dr. Steven Zweibel, EMBA ’23.

“We need to understand that we are part of it, and a central part of it,” said Evenchik of the rapidly increasing use of AI in health care business applications. As Celi was quick to caution, however, “We need to educate everyone to have some basic understanding of AI.”

During his plenary talk “AI in Education and Research at MIT Sloan” in Wong Auditorium, Eric So (Sloan Distinguished Professor of Global Economics and Management) emphasized the need to educate and be educated—especially for future MIT Sloan students.

“The real risk to our students is not that they are replaced by AI, but rather that they are replaced by someone who knows how to better use AI,” So remarked. “What that means is that it’s really important to teach people how to embrace this technology in a productive way.”

Related technologies were top of mind for “The Digitalization and Infrastructure of Real Estate” moderator John Ghirardelli, MBA ’14, and panelists Zvi Gordon, MBA ’14, Dipul Patel, MBA ’14, and Ryan Sheinbein, MBA ’14. They were especially interested in the rising digital and environmental footprints of data centers, which make much of the current AI gold rush possible.

“It’s no longer single-family homes and McDonald’s anymore. It’s a whole new game,” said Ghirardelli.

The climate projects at MIT

MIT Climate Policy Center Faculty Director Christopher Knittel (Associate Dean, Climate; George P. Shultz Professor of Energy Economics) spoke about “Climate Research at MIT” in his plenary highlighting the new center, which he co-leads with Executive Director Bethany Patten, EMBA ’13 (Senior Lecturer).

“MIT has one of the best names and the best reputations in climate change research and environmental research with universities, but I do feel as though we’ve been punching below our weight, so to speak, in places like D.C. or Sacramento or the U.N.,” said Knittel. “The main point of the MIT Climate Policy Center is to amplify that impact that we have among policymakers themselves.”

Elsewhere, the panel “Alumni Innovators: How MIT Sloan Founders Are Addressing Climate Challenges” featured stories of MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative alumni applying their entrepreneurial skills to many environmental problems. Moderated by Jason Jay, PhD ’10 (Senior Lecturer; Director, MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative), the panel included Alexander Borschow, SB ’06, MBA ’14; Diana Ganz, EMBA ’14; and Julian Ortiz, MBA ’19, who also presented his company AdaViv at Saturday night’s “MIT Sloan Innovation Showcase.”

The showcase, affectionately known as “Beaver Tank,” also featured Stwart Peña Feliz, MBA ’23, who spoke about his 2023 MIT delta v cohort startup MacroCycle, a sustainable plastics recycler.

“We make new [bonds],” he said, “[and] we create a new intermediate that allows us to bypass all the energy-intensive steps to produce a virgin-grade plastic that can be sold at market rate and high profitability.”

Celebrating past, present, and future

Before culminating in the ever-popular C-Function Saturday night, Georgia Perakis (John C Head III Dean (Interim) at the MIT Sloan School of Management) spoke with NOBULL Co-Founder Marcus Wilson, MBA ’04, during a fireside chat. She then followed the session with a series of updates from school leadership.

“My understanding is that you have a big fan club here,” Perakis amid cheers at the beginning of her fireside chat with Wilson, who added: “They will certainly be the most raucous.”

In conversation, Wilson told his story and the story of NOBULL. He recalled how his time at MIT Sloan and the friends he made there were instrumental in his success and offered advice to entrepreneurs and innovators in the audience.

“It’s the alumni network, your friends, your classmates, [and] being able to talk to people who have gone through similar things,” he said. “We’re at a stage for about a 20-year reunion where we’ve all had to deal with a lot of personal things: personal losses, classmates of ours who have passed away, and people who’ve had family struggles.”

Before dismissing Wong Auditorium to the evening’s final session and celebrations, Interim Dean Perakis provided an overview of the state of MIT Sloan, as well as remarks on former Dean David Schmittlein’s 16-year legacy and the future of the school’s leadership.

“You all are pretty amazing,” she told everyone. “We have some amazing programs here, and I am so proud of all our students.”

Check out the MIT Sloan Reunion 2024 website to see more highlights and videos.