Assistant Professor Bailey Flanigan has arrived at complex computational methods for helping democracy thrive. “My trajectory across disciplines was just a result of me chasing down the problems I felt were most pressing or inspiring at the time,” she says.

MIT’s Teaching Systems Lab, led by Associate Professor Justin Reich, is working to help K-12 educators, students, policymakers, and others by listening to and sharing their stories. “We’re trying to advocate for an ethos of humility as we examine AI in schools,” he says.

New research co-authored by political scientist and MIT GOV/LAB director Lily Tsai and Research Director Nuole Chen assessed uptake of COVID‐19 vaccines and intention to vaccinate and associated factors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

New research from MIT political scientist Noah Nathan describes the impact of semi-communal “compound houses” In Ghana, which can affect how much people vote and participate in political activity. “The overarching pattern we find is that if you compare people who live in compound houses to residents of other housing types, like single-family homes or self-contained apartments, there is a pretty big difference in political actions,” Nathan says.