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Faculty Profiles

Frank Moss
Frank Moss
Director
Professor of the Practice of Media Arts and Sciences
Jerome B. Wiesner Professorship of Media Technology
Group: New Media Medicine
Office: E15-401
Phone: (617) 324-3818
Fax: (617) 253-8542
E-mail: fmoss@media
addresses are formatted username@media.mit.edu
 

Biography

An entrepreneur and 25-year veteran of the software and computer industries, Frank Moss has spent his career bringing innovative business technologies to market.

In the last five years, however, he's been seeking something different: how to make a broader contribution to the world by using technology to address pressing social issues—such as health care—and to improve quality of life for people worldwide.

Most recently, he co-founded and is on the board of Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc., an early-stage cancer-drug discovery company doing innovative work at the intersection of technology and the life sciences. In addition, he chaired the advisory council for the creation of the Systems Biology Department at Harvard Medical School, where he remains an advisor.

During his career in the computer and software industries, Moss served as CEO and chairman of Tivoli Systems Inc., a pioneer in the distributed systems management field, which he took public in 1995 and subsequently merged with IBM in 1996. He co-founded several other companies, including Stellar Computer, Inc., a developer of graphic supercomputers; and Bowstreet, Inc., a pioneer in the emerging field of Web services.

He began his career at IBM's scientific center in Haifa, Israel, where he also taught at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. He later held various research and management positions at IBM's Yorktown Heights (NY) Research Center, working on advanced development projects in the areas of networking and distributed computing; and executive management positions at Apollo Computer, Inc., and Lotus Development Corporation.

Moss is a member of the Board of Trustees of Princeton University, as well as its Advisory Council for the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

He received a BS in aerospace and mechanical sciences from Princeton University, and both his MS and PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT. His citations include Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award and Forbes Magazine's "Leaders for Tomorrow."

The Media Lab has played a pioneering role over the last 20 years in creating the digital lifestyle we enjoy today. But Moss believes the best is yet to come: a globally connected digital society that makes people smarter, healthier, and more creative. The Lab is conducting research on computers that extend and enhance people's physical, cognitive, and social capabilities; computers that can relate to people in more human terms; and organically decentralized networks that unlock the creative, innovation, and problem-solving powers of people—particularly young people who have grown up "being digital"—in ways not before possible.


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