PROVIDENCE, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) announced that Dr. Maria T. Zuber has been elected to the company's Board of Directors, effective November 1, 2016. Dr. Zuber is the Vice President for Research and the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is also currently the Chair of the National Science Board.
"We are honored to welcome Dr. Zuber to our Board," said Textron Chairman and CEO Scott Donnelly. "Her research experience and knowledge of emerging technologies will provide invaluable support for our company’s product development activities. We are fortunate to have a scientist of such prominence helping to shape our company's strategic direction," Donnelly added.
In her role as Vice President for Research, to which she was appointed in 2013, Dr. Zuber has overall responsibility for research administration and policy at MIT, overseeing MIT Lincoln Laboratory and more than a dozen interdisciplinary research laboratories and centers, and plays a central role in research relationships with the federal government. Dr. Zuber served as the Head of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT from 2003-2011. Since 1990, she has held leadership roles associated with scientific experiments or instrumentation on nine NASA missions, notably serving as Principal Investigator for NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, an effort to map the Moon's gravitational field. In 2013, President Obama appointed Dr. Zuber to the National Science Board, and, in May 2016, she was elected Board Chair.
Dr. Zuber has won numerous awards including the MIT James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, NASA's Outstanding Scientific Achievement Medal, Distinguished Public Service Medal and Outstanding Public Leadership Medal, as well as the American Geophysical Union Harry H. Hess Medal, the Geological Society of America G. K. Gilbert Award and the American Astronautical Society/Planetary Society Carl Sagan Memorial Award. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and American Philosophical Society, and is a fellow for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Geological Society and the American Geophysical Union. Dr. Zuber also serves on the Board of Fellows of Brown University.
In 2004, President Bush appointed her to the Presidential Commission on the Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy. In 2002, Discover magazine named her one of the 50 most important women in science and, in 2008, she was named to the USNews/Harvard Kennedy School List of America's Best Leaders. Dr. Zuber received her B.A. in astronomy and geology from the University of Pennsylvania. She also earned Sc.M. and Ph.D. degrees, both in geophysics, from Brown University.
About Textron
Textron Inc. is a multi-industry company that leverages its global network of aircraft, defense, industrial and finance businesses to provide customers with innovative solutions and services. Textron is known around the world for its powerful brands such as Bell Helicopter, Cessna, Beechcraft, Hawker, Jacobsen, Kautex, Lycoming, E-Z-GO, Greenlee, Bad Boy Off Road, Textron Systems, and TRU Simulation + Training. For more information visit: www.textron.com.
