The Karl Taylor Compton Lecture Series was established in 1957 to honor the late Karl Taylor Compton, who served as president of MIT from 1930 to 1948 and as chairman of the MIT Corporation from 1948 to 1954. The lecture series gives the MIT community direct contact with the important ideas of our times and with people who have contributed much to modern thought.
Featured speaker
Janet Napolitano
March 14, 2011
MIT welcomed Janet Napolitano, secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, to campus to present the March 2011 Karl Taylor Compton Lecture: “The Future of Science as Public Service”.
Past speakers
Janet Napolitano
Rt. Hon. David Miliband MP
Steven Chu
President Paul Kagame
Tom Brokaw
Jeff Bingaman
Edward M. Kennedy
John H. Gibbons
President Oscar Arias Sánchez
Robert White
John A. Armstrong
Alain C. Enthoven
Manhattan Project Team Members
Freeman Dyson
Dr. John Kemeny
Ephraim Katzir
Dr. Linus Pauling
György Kepes
Hans Bethe
Robert M. Solow
Cyril S. Smith
Professor Philip Morrison
Jerome Skolnick
An Evening with Documentary Film Producers and their Films: Geri Ashur, Alan Jacobs, Peter Hermann
Kenneth Boulding
Lester R. Brown, Nevin Scrimshaw, Glen Urban
Baron Zuckerman
Jerome Bruner
Joseph Rhodes, Jr., and James Ahern
Paul A. Samuelson
Hubert Humphrey
McGeorge Bundy
Dr. Herbert Simon
Harvey Brooks
Dr. Isidor I. Rabi
Dr. Andre Lwoff
Dr. Otto Struve
Dr. George Beadle
