Faculty Honors and Awards | 2015  

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MUSIC
AMS Members among ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award Winners
Ellen T. Harris received the Nicolas Slonimsky Award for Outstanding Musical Biography for George Frideric Handel: A Life with Friends (Norton).
Announcement
 

ECONOMICS | ABDUL JAMEEL LATIF POVERTY ACTION LAB
Esther Duflo receives 2015 A.SK Social Science Award 
The WZB Berlin Social Science Center honors the developmental economist and J-PAL director for her studies on poverty alleviation.
Story
 

3 QUESTIONS ON DIGITAL EDUCATION
“Visualizing Japan,” humanities MOOC, a finalist for Japan Prize
In a Q&A, course co-founder Shigeru Miyagawa, MIT Professor of Linguistics and Kochi-Manjiro Professor of Japanese Language and Culture, discusses his pioneering online course. The Japan Prize, an international award for educational broadcast and digital-media programs, is sponsored by NHK.
Story by SHASS Communications
 

MITX HUMANITIES PROJECTS
Henderson and Lane receive grants for MITx projects
The projects are “Literature Lab Tools for Global Shakespeares Curriculum and Beyond,” a project to develop of digital tools for the edX platform (proposed by Diana Henderson, Professor of Literature); and “Engineering Communications,” modules on communicating engineering research in various contexts (proposed by Suzanne Lane, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Media Studies / Writing).
Story
 

LINGUISTICS
Sabine Iatridou, Kai von Fintel, elected Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America
This is the linguistic field’s highest honor, awarded each year to a small number of linguists for distinguished contributions to the discipline.
Iatridou website | Von Fintel website | MIT Members of the LSA 

PHILOSOPHY, POLITICAL SCIENCE, ECONOMICS
Haslanger, Thelen, and Werning elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 
“We are honored to elect a new class of extraordinary women and men to join our distinguished membership,” said Don Randel, chair of the academy’s Board of Directors. “Each new member is a leader in his or her field and has made a distinct contribution to the nation and the world.”
Story at MIT News | AAAS press release

ECONOMICS
Jim Poterba elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Bowring, Mrowka, and Seager named, along with Poterba, for “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” Membership in the NAS is one of the most significant honors given to academic researchers.  
Story at MIT News

POLITICAL SCIENCE
Kathleen Thelen receives two book awards
For Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Thelen has received the ASA’s Barrington Moore Book award, and the 2015 Best Book Award (co-winner) of the APSA Section on European Politics and Society, an award given annually to the best book in the area of comparative and historical sociology. 
About the book | Thelen website

POLITICAL SCIENCE
In Song Kim awarded the 2015 Mancur Olson Award 
Kim, an Assistant Professor of Political Science, received this award from the APSA’s Political Economy Section, for the for the best dissertation in Political Economy in the previous two years.
About | Kim webpage

POLITICAL SCIENCE
Fotini Christia named an inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellow
The Carnegie Corporation has announced the inaugural class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows, among them MIT’s Fotini Christia, associate professor of political science.
Story by SHASS Communications

DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
Professor Esther Duflo awarded Spain's Princess of Asturias social science prize 
Duflo, director of MIT's Jameel Poverty Action Lab, has received the award for her work to alleviate poverty in developing countries.
Story

ECONOMICS
Parag Pathak receives 2016 Social Choice and Welfare Award
The prize honors young scholars of excellent accomplishment in the area of social choice theory and welfare economics. The SCW prize medal La Pensée (The Thought) is by Frech sculptor Raymond Delamarre (1890-1986).
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ANTHROPOLOGY
Anthropologist Susan Silbey receives Mentorship Award 
The award from the Law and Safety Association is given to an outstanding mentor for graduate, professional or undergraduate students who are working on issues of law and society.
Citation

ANTHROPOLOGY
Tragic Spirits on ICAS book prize short list | Buyandelger
About  | Interview with Buyandelger in Anthropology News 

SCIENCE WRITING
Seth Mnookin wins 2015 Eric Martin Award
Mnookin received the award (for an article for a Public or Health Care Consumer Audience) for his longform article One of a Kind: What Do You Do if Your Child Has a Condition That Is New to Science? inThe New Yorker (July 21, 2014).
Award information

COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES / WRITING
Junot Díaz receives Premio Metropolis Azul Prize
The prize is given by the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival in Montreal to an author from any country or region, for a work of fiction written in Spanish, English, or French, which explores some aspect of Spanish-language culture or history.
About | Diaz MIT webpage

POLITICAL SCIENCE
Teppei Yamamoto receives Miller Prize, awarded Hayes Career Development Professorship
Yamamoto has won the Society for Political Methodology’s 2015 Miller Prize for the best article published in Political Analysis.
About | Yamamoto webpage

LINGUISTICS
DeGraff project video receives "Public Choice Award" 
Opening up education in Haiti received the public Choice Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. 
More | MIT-Haiti

POLITICAL SCIENCE
Dan de Kadt is co-winner of the Fiona Macgillivray Award 
DeKadt received the award for the best Political Economy paper presented at the previous year’s annual APSA meeting. His co-authored paper is titled “Agents of the Regime? Traditional Leaders and Electoral Clientelism in South Africa.”
De Kadt biographical note | APSA

ECONOMICS
Economist Jim Poterba elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Bowring, Mrowka, and Seager named, along with Poterba, for “distinguished” research.
Story at MIT News
 

PHILOSOPHY, POLITICAL SCIENCE, ECONOMICS
Haslanger, Thelen, and Werning elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 
Story at MIT News | AAAS press release
 

DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
Professor Esther Duflo awarded Spain's Princess of Asturias social science prize 
Duflo, director of MIT's Jameel Poverty Action Lab, has received the award for her work to alleviate poverty in developing countries. The organizers of the prize said that Duflo has “profoundly changed strategies for education, health and employment in Africa, Asia and Latin America.”
Story
 

POLITICAL SCIENCE
Fotini Christia named an inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellow
The Carnegie Corporation has announced the inaugural class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows, among them MIT’s Fotini Christia, associate professor of political science. Each fellow will receive up to $200,000. Christia’s research — which has involved extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iran, the Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen — focuses on conflict and cooperation in the Muslim world.
Story by SHASS Communications
 

LITERATURE
Literature Professor Arthur Bahr named a 2015 MacVicar Faculty Fellow
Arthur Bahr, the Alfred Henry and Jean Morrison Hayes Career Development Associate Professor of Literature, has been named a MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT's highest undergraduate teaching award. 
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MUSIC
Mark Harvey named a Jazz Hero
An honor awarded by the Jazz Journalist Association, Jazz Heroes are noted for positive influence on their communities. Harvey is a trumpeter, pianist, composer, minister, and faculty member of MIT Music, where he teaches jazz history, theory and composition.
Story
 

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Jennifer Light receives 2015 honorary degree from Illinois Institute of Technology 
Professor Light is a historian and sociologist of science and technology. Her studies of past efforts to solve social and political problems using scientific methods and technological tools show how humanistic inquiry can inform the work of scientists and engineers.
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ECONOMICS
Economist Heidi Williams wins Sloan Research Fellowship
Heidi Williams, Class of 1957 Career Development Assistant Professor of Economics, is one of five MIT faculty to be selected. Awarded annually since 1955, the Sloan Research Fellowships are given to early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars. Fellows receive $50,000 to be used to further their research.
Story
 

MUSIC
Ellen T. Harris' book named finalist for the Marfield Prize for Arts Writing
George Frideric Handel: A Life with Friends (W.W. Norton & Company), by Ellen T. Harris, MIT SHASS Professor of Music Emeritus, has been named a finalist for the Marfield Prize. Given by the Arts Club of Washington, the award recognizes excellence in arts writing and is one of the largest monetary awards for a single-author book published in the US.
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PHILOSOPHY
Judith Thomson, Professor of Philosophy Emerita, receives Honorary Doctor of Letters from Cambridge University
The announcement reads, in part, "That the title of the degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa be conferred under Statute A II 14 upon Judith Jarvis Thomson, M.A., of Newnham College, Professor of Philosophy Emerita and formerly Laurence S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy, MIT, moral and metaphysical philosopher."
Announcement at Cambridge University
 

POLITICAL SCIENCE
Lily Tsai receives Levitan Award, the school's highest research honor
Tsai, Associate Professor of Political Science, has received the Levitan Award to support research on the health, economic, and socio-political outcomes of Ebola outreach work in Liberia.
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LINGUISTICS
Michel DeGraff receives Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Award 
DeGraff, Professor of Linguistics, is a leader of the MIT-Haiti Initiative, a project for the development, evaluation, and dissemination of active-learning resources in Kreyòl to help improve education, leadership, and management in Haiti.
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COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES / WRITING 
Vivek Bald wins two “best book” awards for Bengali Harlem 
Bald has received the 2015 Outstanding History Book Prize from the Association of Asian American Studies for Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America (Harvard University Press, 2013). 
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RESEARCH
Twelve SHASS Research Fund recipients for 2015 announced
The SHASS Research Fund supports research in the areas of humanities, arts, and social sciences that shows promise of making an important contribution to the proposed area of activity.
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LINGUISTICS
Professor Donca Steriade named LSA Fellow
Steriade, Professor of Linguistics, MIT SHASS, has been elected a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America. The induction ceremony for the 2015 class of Fellows 
will take place on Friday, January 9, 2015 at the LSA Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon.
Announcement
 

POLITICAL SCIENCE
Posen's Restraint cited as most important book of 2014
"Barry R. Posen’s recent book, Restraint: A New Foundation for US Grand Strategy (Cornell University Press) improved my mind and might improve the world, via Posen’s original plan for reframing international security. The most important book this year, it has particular significance for countries that over-rely on Uncle Sam."
Story
 

ANTHROPOLOGY
Buyandelger receives 2014 Francis I. K. Hsu Book Prize 
Tragic Spirits, by Associate Professor of Anthropology Manduhai Buyandelger has been awarded the Hsu Book Prize by the Society for East Asian Anthropology, a division of the American Anthropological Association.
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