Lotte Bailyn

Lotte Bailyn has received the 2021 Centennial Medal from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). The highest honor awarded by GSAS, the medal is given to “four distinguished alumni who have made fundamental and lasting contributions to knowledge, to their disciplines, to their colleagues, and to society.”

The award citation notes Bailyn’s “transformative” scholarship, “profound insights,” and leadership: “There is no greater authority on the dynamics of the workplace and the family than Lotte Bailyn … She has been overturning conventional assumptions about organizational behavior and productivity for decades, demonstrating that valuing employees’ lives outside of work actually leads to better business outcomes.

”More details on Bailyn’s background and career achievements can be found in the full Centennial Medal Citation.

Lotte Bailyn is being recognized with an honorary doctorate (Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa) from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for her “groundbreaking work” and “academic and public leadership in promoting the equal integration of women into the labor force more generally and particularly into the fields of science and technology.” 

This honor recognizes how Bailyn’s “innovative research in the field of work-family reconciliation has advanced both the academic and corporate realms,” noting that her work “surfaced the challenges associated with bridging work and family obligations not only as individuals’ and families’ mission, but as organizational and social issues,” leading to “the development of solutions that benefit both employees and employers around the world.” In addition, her “profound understanding of career dynamics and gender equity in the fields of science and technology facilitated women’s struggle to gain public recognition for the discrimination they suffer in their academic and scientific careers,” and her leadership “has played a crucial role” in “cooperation among leading universities around the world” to develop “policies for mitigating the marginalization and exclusion [of] women and other social minorities.”

Lotte Bailyn, Professor of Management, has been named the 2009 recipient of MIT's Gordon Y. Billard Award. This award is presented annually for "special service of outstanding merit performed for the Institute," with a fund established by Mr. Gordon Y Billard, '24.