Dr. Eric Grimson has led quite an eventful life since he left Estevan more than 40 years ago.
Grimson is a chancellor for academic advancement, a professor of computer science and the Bernard Gordon professor of medical engineering at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is a suburb of Boston.
Thanks to his contributions in artificial intelligence and computer science, Grimson will be presented an honourary doctor of science from the University of Saskatchewan on May 31 at TCU Place in Saskatoon.
“While he has spent the bulk of his career in the United States, Grimson remains close to family and friends in Saskatchewan and is proud of his Prairie heritage,” the University of Saskatchewan stated in a news release.
For his part, Grimson said he was both surprised and humbled with the honour.
“It’s a very nice gesture, not something you expect, and it meant a lot given that it was coming from what I think of as my home province,” Grimson said in an interview from his office at MIT.
He didn’t realize he was up for consideration, and so it came as a complete surprise when he received a phone call from the university’s secretary.
“I know, often, in these kinds of situation, they are trying to honour somebody who has made contributions that either help the province or help other people,” Grimson said. “I didn’t ask them which of my things I had done that they were focusing in on.”
He will speak to graduates about his experiences, share his thoughts on the future, and urge them to use their experiences in Saskatchewan to thrive in the future.
“It doesn’t matter where you come from, if you are really focused, you can succeed,” Grimson said.
Grimson was born in Estevan in 1953. His father, William, was a vice-principal of the Estevan Collegiate Institute, which was Estevan’s high school at the time, and his mother, Laura, was an eminent musician and music teacher. The family later moved to Regina.
In 1975, he received a bachelor of science in mathematics and physics from the University of Regina.
A PhD in mathematics from MIT followed in 1980. He joined the institute’s faculty in 1984.
Grimson has always been intrigued by science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and he had some teachers in Estevan who pushed him to pursue excellence and take education seriously.
“I like to see how one solves hard problems,” said Grimson. “That’s not to say you only see them in math and science, but there’s an elegance to a challenging problem, where you basically figure out how to put structure around it, and you figure out what the solution is. There’s a real excitement about seeing that.”
He has always enjoyed playing with numbers and engaging in science experiments, and he would get excited when they worked.
Grimson toyed with other potential career paths in his younger days. Once he was in high school, he thought about careers in law and business, but science and math were always near the top of his list for career choices.
Luck brought him to MIT as a student in the late 1970s. He knew about MIT even when he was in Estevan, thanks to his teachers. After graduating from the University of Regina, he couldn’t decide whether to enter mathematics, physics or computer science. He applied to many schools in Canada, but also looked to MIT because he knew it was the best place to go for computer science.
“I’ve often joked with people that they still haven’t discovered they put my application in the wrong pile,” said Grimson. “They intended to reject me, but they just didn’t realize they’d accepted me.”
At that time, the Canadian government had a scholarship program, 67 Science, that could be used anywhere in the world. It helped him get to MIT.
Grimson spent the first six months at the school questioning whether he belonged. He thought he would get his PhD and return to Canada, but fell in love with MIT and stayed.
“I often tell my students down here that I moved south for the warm weather,” said Grimson. “I got to Boston and I figured I was done.”
His time at MIT has allowed him to see some very talented and gifted students. Grimson believes the students are remarkable; they’re bright and focused on having an impact on the world, and they have a broad range of interests.
“They go on to be future leaders, whether it’s of companies or of academic institutions,” said Grimson. “One of the things that’s nice is we regularly see a set of Canadian students as a part of that, who will come through MIT and head off to do great things.”
MIT engages students as partners, he said, as even undergraduates get to research with faculty in labs, and the school has a culture of students taking on great problems and solving them.
“MIT has had maker spaces for over 60 years, where students go off and create things,” said Grimson. “There is very much a notion of finding ways to encourage students to be willing to take risks, and providing the supports to enable them to take those risks, so that when they leave here, they’re ready to go off and start something.”
As a member of MIT’s faculty, Grimson witnesses the technological changes that have occurred at the school. When he showed up at MIT, the school was still programming on punch cards. Now there is more computational power on his cell phone, by a factor of a thousand, than when he was there as a PhD student doing computer science.
“The changes in technology around computation, the creation and growth of the Internet … have had huge impacts in terms of how rapidly technology changes,” said Grimson. “Today I look at things like nanomaterials and how they’re going to revolutionize everything from new electronic devices to solar cells to medical devices.”
Grimson is looking forward to spending some time in Saskatchewan at the end of the month. He will spend time visiting with family, and driving the highways of the province.
“I love the view one gets when you drive up the highway from Regina to Saskatoon, and you get that wonderful view of the great Prairie landscape,” said Grimson.
He doubts he will be able to visit Estevan during this trip, but he looks forward to returning to the city eventually, and seeing how much has changed since he was last in the Energy City more than a decade ago.
