Highlights from MIT Sloan Reunion 2025

Thousands of graduating students, alumni, and their families came to campus at the end of May for the 2025 commencement ceremonies and Reunion celebrations. Among the returning graduates were over 1,500 MIT Sloan alumni and their guests from 46 countries who attended MIT Sloan Reunion 2025.

Nelson Repenning | PhD ’96, Distinguished Professor of System Dynamics and Organization Studies

Problem-solving is the engine of dynamism.

Getting started

Reunion began on Thursday, May 29, with sessions organized by the MIT Sloan Admissions Office, the MIT Sloan Career Development Office (CDO), the MIT Leadership Center, and more.

The CDO’s Gayle Grader (Senior Director, Career Development, Executive and Alumni Coaching) and Shauna LaFauci Barry (Senior Associate Director, Alumni Engagement & Coaching) were joined by panelists included Dev Bala, EMBA ’20, Matthew Long, MBA ’15, Boris Nicolas, SFMBA ’20, and Rachel Schiff, MBA ’05, to discuss how artificial intelligence is disrupting project management. Dawna Levenson, SB ’83, SM ’84, (Assistant Dean of Admissions) provided updates on the latest trends in university admissions. And Mark Newhall (Director, Employer Relations & Recruiting) and Becca Souza (Director, Action Learning Office) introduced a pilot program that allows companies to engage seamlessly with the school.

The afternoon’s most popular sessions were “There Has Got to Be a Better Way”—a lecture and new book preview by Nelson Repenning, PhD ’96 (Distinguished Professor of System Dynamics and Organization Studies; Faculty Director, MIT Leadership Center)—and “Raising Your Game”—a leadership workshop led by Nicki Roth (Executive Coaching Lead, MIT Leadership Center).

“Problem-solving is the engine of dynamism,” said Repenning.

Georgia Perakis | John C Head III Dean (Interim), MIT Sloan School of Management; William F. Pounds Professor of Management

It’s very important to educate our students to be tech savvy and tech leaders ... [This] is changing not just the future of management education, but the future of how we learn, and I think this is an important thing to address.

New learnings

The first full day of Reunion kicked off Friday morning with sessions on healthcare, cybersecurity, and the business of MIT Sloan.

In “Women in Healthcare: Trailblazers, Achievements, and the Road Ahead,” Dr. Andrea Doria, EMBA ’19, began by interviewing Dr. Judy Lieberman, the renowned Boston Children’s Hospital physician and Harvard Medical School professor. The second half of the session featured a panel moderated by Doria and featuring Dr. Tina Poussaint, Dr. Bharti Khurana, EMBA ’23, and Dr. Jennifer Carter, EMBA ’19. Amgen Professor of Biology Emerita Nancy Hopkins also took part throughout the question-and-answer portions.

“From Threat to Shield: How AI is Shaping the Future of Cybersecurity” filled E62-276 and its overflow room as panelists Leon Bian, SDM ’05, Emmy Linder, MBA ’10, Taylor Reynolds, SF ’15, and Anupam Sahai, SDM ’00, discussed the dual role AI is playing in modern cybersecurity. Simultaneously, Bill Garrett (Senior Associate Dean & Chief Administrative Officer) and Kathryn Hawkes (Senior Associate Dean, External Engagement) surveyed the school’s history of financial independence and the impact of philanthropy in “The Business and the Case for MIT Sloan.”

After lunch, a flurry of faculty talks and alumni panels continued throughout the afternoon before the class dinners off campus.

Negin Golrezaei (W. Maurice Young (1961) Career Development Associate Professor of Management) discussed potentially shifting carbon markets’ operations to boost revenue and drive investments in “Reimagining Carbon Markets.” Michiel Bakker, SM ’19, PhD ’20, (Assistant Professor, Information Technology) spoke about an innovative AI-based system designed to mediate human deliberation in “The Habermas Machine.” And Dimitris Bertsimas, SM ’87, PhD ’88, (Vice Provost for Open Learning; Associate Dean of Business Analytics) presented with Antonis Margonis on leveraging observational data and clinical trials to improve precision medicine in “The Cutting Edge,” which was moderated by Dr. Anthony Dowidowicz, EMBA ’18.

In “Lessons in Finance,” panelists Tracey Nilsen-Ames, MFin ’20, Frank Graves, SM ’80, Celi Khanyile-Lynch, MBA ’20, Warren Naphtal, SM ’85, and James Saliba, MFin ’10, MBA ’15, discussed their careers in the financial industry after graduating from MIT Sloan. The annual “Perspectives from Leaders for Global Operations Alumni” panel featured similar career reflections by Ellen Ebner, LGO ’15, Aaron Raphel, LGO ’05, Anuj Bhardwaj, LGO ’10, and Jeremy Stewart, LGO ’20.

Jonathan Hinton, EMBA ’15, Sandhya Murali, MBA ’15, and Denis Lussault, EMBA ’20, joined Jason Jay, PhD ’10, (Senior Lecturer; Director, MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative) to discuss scaling sustainable businesses and driving meaningful impact in “Scaling Impact: MIT Sloan Alumni Driving Sustainable Solutions.” The day concluded with the TED-style “IM2M Talks: Ideas Made to Matter,” during which Nicole Obi, MCP ’95, SM ’95, Andrew Myerson, EMBA ’15, and Diya Sukh, MBA ’15, presented big ideas they had gleaned since graduation.

Richard Locke | PhD ’98, John C Head III Dean (Incoming), MIT Sloan School of Management

[There] are assumptions that we have to rethink, and I think that creates an incredible opportunity for us here at MIT.

Imagined futures

If anything characterized Reunion’s Saturday schedule, it was the future.

During faculty presentations on “Financial Advice and Investor Beliefs” and “Financing Deep Tech,” Antoinette Schoar (Stewart C. Myers-Horn Family Professor of Finance) and Andrew Lo (Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor of Finance; Director, Laboratory for Financial Engineering) discussed their respective research projects and how each informs the future of finance.

“Why hasn’t this happened yet? What’s missing?” Lo asked the audience in Wong Auditorium when discussing an idea for investing in pharmaceutical research he developed with a former student, Jose-Maria “Chema” Fernandez, SF ’10. “Two things need to happen. One is you need the risk analytics … The second thing that’s needed is permission.”

In the afternoon, Wong Auditorium played host to several significant demonstrations. Bethany Patten, EMBA ’13, (Executive Director, MIT Climate Policy Center) displayed the En-ROADS global climate simulator and explained how the MIT Climate Policy Center is using tools like it to speak to both sides of the political aisles. Later, Bill Aulet, SF ’94, (Ethernet Inventors Professor of the Practice; Managing Director, Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship) and Jenny Larios Berlin, MCP ’14, MBA ’15, demonstrated the MIT AI JetPack, a recommendation engine to accelerate the entrepreneurial process. Alumni entrepreneurs Michelle E. Ewy, SFMBA ’24, Christopher Nolte, MBA ’15, and Chris Tinsley, MBA ’20, also shared their insights.

Prior to this and the anticipated Consumption Function, however, Wong Auditorium and the lobby outside were packed with alumni eager to hear from Georgia Perakis (John C Head III Dean (Interim), MIT Sloan School of Management; William F. Pounds Professor of Management) and Richard Locke, PhD ’98 (John C Head III Dean (Incoming), MIT Sloan School of Management).

After remembering the legacy of the late David Schmittlein, who served as dean from 2007 to 2024, and thanking Interim Dean Perakis for her service, Senior Associate Dean Kathryn Hawkes asked Perakis and Locke about the future of MIT Sloan and management education.

“It’s very important to educate our students to be tech savvy and tech leaders,” said Perakis. “[This] is changing not just the future of management education, but the future of how we learn, and I think this is an important thing to address.”

“We’ve gone through other disruptive technologies in the past. We are always talking about how we can integrate them, diffuse them, adopt them,” said Incoming Dean Locke. “[There] are assumptions that we have to rethink, and I think that creates an incredible opportunity for us here at MIT.”