Welcoming the new Chief of Staff in the Chancellor’s Office
Dear colleagues,
I am thrilled to announce that I have appointed Jill Bassett as chief of staff in the Office of the Chancellor. Jill’s first day will be October 2.
Jill stepped into the role of Associate Dean & Director of the Priscilla King Gray (PKG) Center in September 2019. In that time, she has elevated the PKG Center’s profile at MIT and beyond, expanding opportunities for students to work with community partners to advance social, racial, and environmental justice projects. The PKG Center now has more student demand than it can fulfill for many of its offerings and maintains a waiting list for community collaborators interested in working with MIT students.
Thanks to Jill’s leadership, the PKG Center multiplied its engagements with DLCs, set the stage for growth in community-engaged learning, increased its footprint in the social innovation and entrepreneurship education space, and led the creative integration of voter registration opportunities throughout MIT as part of MIT’s ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge.
Prior to joining MIT, Jill served in executive director and strategic advisor roles at Florida International University and Harvard Medical School. She also served as chief of staff for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Secretary of Health and Human Services, helping to oversee a portfolio that included a broad swath of state government agencies, programs, and initiatives.
Jill earned her BA in Anthropology from Amherst College and holds a Master of Science degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Jill’s passion for higher education combined with her proven track record of advancing and communicating about senior leaders’ agendas makes her uniquely qualified for this new challenge. I am confident that she will partner with all of us to ensure students have access to the services, supports, and opportunities they need to become their whole selves.
*****
More than 100 candidates submitted applications for the chief of staff role. The search that led us to Jill was extensive and highly-competitive. Kim chaired a committee that included David Randall and Kate Trimble from DSL and OVC; Dan Delgado from the Provost’s Office; and Anthony Williams from Human Resources. I am grateful to the committee for the time, energy, and expertise they dedicated to this critical process, and to the colleagues inside and outside of the Chancellor’s Office who took part in candidate interviews and then shared their insights with me.
Please join me in congratulating Jill and welcoming her to our team. And please feel free to share this wonderful news with your teams.
Sincerely,
Melissa
Melissa Nobles
Chancellor
Class of 1922 Professor of Political Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Ave.
10-200
Cambridge, MA 02139
mnobles@mit.edu | (617) 253-6637