James Rhyne Killian
| James Killian | |
|---|---|
| Chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board | |
|
In office May 4, 1961 – April 23, 1963 |
|
| President |
John F. Kennedy Lyndon Johnson |
| Preceded by | John Hull |
| Succeeded by | Clark Clifford |
|
In office January 13, 1956 – March 1, 1958 |
|
| President | Dwight Eisenhower |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | John Hull |
| President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology | |
|
In office 1948–1959 |
|
| Preceded by | Karl Compton |
| Succeeded by | Julius Stratton |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
July 24, 1904 Blacksburg, South Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | January 29, 1988 (aged 83) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS) |
| Awards | Vannevar Bush Award (1980) |
James Rhyne Killian, Jr. (July 24, 1904 – January 29, 1988) was the 10th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from 1948 until 1959.
Killian was born on July 24, 1904 in Blacksburg, South Carolina. His father was a textile maker. He studied at Duke University (formerly Trinity University) for two years until he transferred to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a Bachelor of Science in business and engineering administration in 1926. While there, he was a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity.
In 1932 while serving as the editor of MIT's alumni magazine Technology Review, Killian was instrumental in the founding of Technology Press, the publishing imprint that would later become the institute's independent publishing house, MIT Press. He became executive assistant to MIT President Karl Taylor Compton in 1939, and co-directed the wartime operation of MIT, which strongly supported military research and development. He was from 1948 until 1959 the 10th president of MIT. In 1956, James R. Killian Jr was named as the 1st Chair to the new President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board by the Eisenhower Administration; a position which he held until April 1963.
On leave from MIT he served as Special Assistant for Science and Technology to President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1957 to 1959, making him the first true Presidential Science Advisor. Killian headed the Killian Committee and oversaw the creation of the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) shortly after the launches of the Soviet artificial satellites, Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2, in October and November 1957. PSAC was instrumental in initiating national curriculum reforms in science and technology and in establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
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