Eric Grimson

Eric Grimson is Chancellor for Academic Advancement at MIT, serving as a central advisor to the president on institutional campaigns and representing MIT to alumni and parents. He is also a Professor of Computer Science and Bernard M. Gordon Professor of Medical Engineering, overseeing MIT’s online education initiatives as Interim Vice President for Open Learning. His research focuses on computer vision and medical image analysis, with contributions to algorithms for medical imagery and open-access platforms like 3D Slicer. Grimson has taught over 15,000 undergraduates and advised nearly 50 PhD students. He holds honorary doctorates from Dalhousie University and the University of Saskatchewan/Regina.

Education: BSc in Mathematics & Physics (University of Regina), PhD in Mathematics (MIT). Professional roles include former EECS Department Head and Acting MIT Chancellor. Research affiliations include the Medical Vision Group and Vision Group, advancing AI in healthcare and computer vision.

Research Interests:

• Computer vision applications in medical imaging
• Medical engineering and neuroimaging
• Online education platforms
• Unsupervised learning and Bayesian models

Awards:

• AAAI Fellow (2000)
• ACM Fellow
• IEEE Fellow
• Multiple honorary doctorates

Grimson’s work bridges academia and innovation, leading MIT’s Open Learning initiatives while maintaining a robust research agenda in vision and medical computing.