Faculty Honors and Awards | 2018
 

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HEALTH ECONOMICS | COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES
Amy Finkelstein and Lisa Parks win MacArthur Fellowships

Amy Finkelstein    Lisa Parks

Finkelstein, a health care economist, and Parks, a media studies scholar, have each been awarded the prestigious MacArthur award, colloquially known as the “genius grant,” which comes in the form of a $625K fellowship.
Story at MIT News  |  Finkelstein at MacArthur  |  Parks at MacArthur  

PHILOSOPHY
Agustín Rayo elected to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Of the honor, Rayo, Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of MIT SHASS said: "It was totally unexpected, and I was delighted to hear the news."
News at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters  |  Profile of Agustín Rayo


ECONOMICS
Joshua Angrist and Jörn-Steffen Pischke awarded the Fama Prize
Angrist (MIT) and Pischke (London School of Economics) will share the $250K prize for their book Mostly Harmless Econometrics (Princeton University Press, 2009).
Story  |  Angrist website  |  School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative


MUSIC AND THEATER STUDIES
Assistant Professor Charlotte Brathwaite awarded Magic Grant
Grantees Charlotte Braithwaite, a theater director, and June Cross, a documentary filmmaker, will explore how foreign interference, gerrymandering, and domestic tactics combined to suppress the black vote in 2016.
Report at Columbia University  |  3Q Interview with Brathwaite
 

COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES
Marjorie Liu becomes the first woman to win comic industry's top writing award
"Liu took home a Best Writer Eisner Award for her work on the epic fantasy Monstress. The novelist, comic book writer, and attorney expressed shock at being the first woman in the award’s 30-year history to win the writing prize."
Story at Time magazine
 

COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES
Sasha Costanza-Chock among winners of Journal of Design and Science essay contest
MIT Media Lab and MIT Press announce winners of the Journal of Design and Science essay competition, including Contanza-Chock, an associate professor of civic media. 
Story at MIT News  |  Essay: Design Justice, AI, and Escape from the Matrix of Domination


LITERATURE, COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES, GAME LAB
Three SHASS professors receive CAST Fay Chandler Faculty Creativity Seed Grants
Stephanie Frampton, Associate Professor of Literature (for ARTificial Intelligence); Mikael Jakobsson, Research Scientist in CMS/W and and Research Coordinator of the MIT Game Lab (for Maria: Voicing Counter Colonialism Through Board Game Creation); and Ken Urban, Senior Lecturer in Theater Arts (for The Immortals)
About
 

MUSIC AND THEATER ARTS
Composer Jamshied Sharifi ’83, wins Tony Award
Sharifi ’83, composer, musician, and former MIT visiting artist HAS won the 2018 Tony Award for Best Orchestrations for the acclaimed musical The Bands Visit
Story


HISTORY
Historian Evelyn Fox Keller receives the Dan David award
Keller, a former MIT professor won for “pioneering work on language, gender, and science” which “has been hugely influential on shaping our views of the history of science.”
Story at Haaretz.com


HISTORY
Christopher Capozzola named a Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs fellow
MIT historian one of nine fellows selected by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs to receive support for research under the project "The Living Legacy of the First World War.”
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SHASS announces 10 Research Fund recipients for 2018
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. The School is pleased to announce ten recipients for 2018.
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ECONOMICS
Professor Hausman elected to the British Academy
MIT Economist Jerry Allen Hausman, the John and Jennie S. MacDonald Professor of Economics, and a member of faculty of the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, has been elected to the British Academy in recognition of his distinction in the field of economics.
Story by SHASS Communications


MUSIC
Eran Egozy wins $50K grant from Knight Foundation for Concert Cue
Twelve projects designed to harness the power of technology to engage people with the arts will receive $600,000 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The projects will receive $50,000 each to uncover new, potentially-replicable strategies for cultural organizations to adapt to and thrive in the digital era.
Press Release | Story at Fast Company


ECONOMICS
Amy Finkelstein elected to the National Academy of Arts and Sciences
Four MIT faculty members have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of their “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”
Story at MIT News


ECONOMICS
Parag Pathak wins Clark Medal for best economist under 40



Pathak's work on matching students and public schools in Boston and elsewhere allows for more efficient and satisfactory school assignments. The Clark Medal is a major honor, the most prestigious award in the field after the Nobel.
Story at MIT News | Story at Bloomberg: "A top prize for a theory that works"


PHILOSOPHY
Stephen Yablo receives Lebowitz Prize for Philosophical Achievement
Awarded by the American Philosophical Association and the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the Lebowitz Prize recognizes outstanding achievement in philosophy. Yablo, Skinner Professor of Philosophy at MIT, is known for his work in logic, the philosophy of language, and metaphysics.
Press Release |  Profile  |  A Philosopher's Dozen


INSTITUTE AWARDS
SHASS faculty sweep the 2018 MacVicar Fellow awards
David Autor (Economics), Christopher Capozzola (History), Shankar Raman (Literature), and Merritt Roe Smith (History, and STS), have been named 2018 MacVicar Fellows, the Institute's highest honor for undergraduate teaching.
MIT News story


Six outstanding SHASS teachers receive the 2018 Levitan Teaching Award
Bravo to: Eran Egozy, Elizabeth Wood, Olivia D’ Ambrosio, Shariann Lewitt, Mariana San Martín, and Arda Gitmez.
Story at SHASS News


COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES + CAST + CSAIL
VR project “The Enemy” wins 2017 Rose d'Or | D. Fox Harrell
Works from seven countries were honored at the 56th Rose d’Or Awards in Berlin, including “The Enemy,” a virtual reality experience developed by MIT CAST artist Ben Khelifa in collaboration with CMS/W + CSAIL Professor D. Fox Harrell to explore VR’s potential to engender empathy and humanity. 
Story at EBU


GLOBAL STUDIES AND LANGUAGES
Jing Wang awarded the Overseas Distinguished Professorship
China’s Ministry of Education has awarded Jing Wang, Professor of Chinese Media and Cultural Studies, the Overseas Distinguished Professorship, a five-year appointment at the University of Communication of China.
Jing Wang's website


SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Robin Wolfe Scheffler awarded the 2018 Levitan Prize
The prestigious award in the humanities includes a $30,000 grant that will support his research into the factors that influenced the development of Boston’s booming biotech industry. “It’s thrilling to receive this award, particularly at the very beginning of a project,” Scheffler says.
Story by SHASS Communications


ECONOMICS
Victor Chernozhukov receives Humboldt Research Award
Chernozhukov, Ford Professor of Economics, has been recognized for lifetime achievement in research. In addition, he will be invited to carry out research projects of his/her own choice in cooperation with colleagues in Germany.
Humboldt Foundation website

 

POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
Political scientist Lily Tsai and philosopher Agustin Rayo receive MIT's Committed to Caring Award
Story at MIT News
 

HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
Historian Malick Ghachem and anthropologist Stefan Helmreich selected as Radcliffe Institute Fellows
Story at the Radcliffe Institute


ECONOMICS
Professors Nancy L. Rose and Parag A. Pathak elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Among the eight MIT faculty members elected to the AAAS for 2018 are two members of the MIT-SHASS faculty: Parag Pathak, the Jane Berkowitz Carlton and Dennis William Carlton Professor of Microeconomics, and Nancy Rose, the Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics, and Head of the Department of Economics.
Story


KNIGHT SCIENCE JOURNALISM
Deborah Blum wins Endocrine Society Journalism Award
Deborah Blum, Director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, has been awarded the Endocrine Society Award for Excellence in Science and Medical Journalism.
Endocrine Society website


Catherine Clark receives Mellon Fellowship
Catherine Clark has received the Mellon Fellowship for Assistant Professors at the Institute for Advanced Study, for 2017–2018.
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