Faculty Honors and Awards | 2022
JANUARY
HISTORY; WRITING; THEATER ARTS; SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Six faculty receive MIT SHASS Research Fund awards for 2022
The SHASS Research Fund supports research in the Institute's humanities, arts, and social science fields that shows promise of making an important contribution to the proposed area of activity. Congratulations, all!
Upper Row: Dwai Banerjee, Associate Professor, Program in Science, Technology, and Society; Tristan Brown, Assistant Professor, History; Eric Goldberg, Professor of History. Lower Row: Nick Montfort, Professor, Comparative Media Studies/Writing; Tanalís Padilla, Professor of History; Ken Urban, Senior Lecturer, Music and Theater Arts
LITERATURE
Joshua Bennett receives the MLA's Scarborough Prize
Bennett, a former diversity pre-doctoral fellow in MIT Literature, received the prize for his book Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man (Harvard University Press). The Committee's citation reads, in part: "Brilliant in its approach and gorgeous in its prose, Joshua Bennett’s Being Property Once Myself employs conceptual frames from ecological criticism and animal studies to recast and reinterpret the African American literary imagination."
Press Release | Joshua Bennett | About the book | Review, LA Review of Books
Professor Joshua Bennett at the University of Pittsburgh; Book Cover
LINGUISTICS
Shigeru Miyagawa awarded the São Paulo Excellence Chair
The award, given by the São Paulo Research Foundation, recognizes Professor Miyagawa's his work in language and evolution and will support research at the University of São Paulo in archeology, biology, linguistics, and animal communication studies. Miyagawa will be appointed as a visiting faculty member in USP’s Biosciences Institute.
Miyagawa website | São Paulo Research Foundation
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Jennifer Light receives Outstanding Scholarly Contribution Awards from ASA
Light, the Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Science and Technology, and a Professor of Urban Studies and Planning, received the honor from the American Sociological Association's Section on Children and Youth for her paper, "Students as Economic Actors, Past and Present," published in the Harvard Educational Review, 89(1): 85–108.
Award citation | Paper | Light webpage | Story at MIT News
FEBRUARY
Nilma Dominique, lecturer in Portuguese, in the MIT Global Languages section
GLOBAL LANGUAGES
Nilma Dominique honored with 2022 MLK Jr. Leadership Award
Dominique, a lecturer in Portuguese in Global Languages, received the award, given to members of the MIT community who embody Dr. King’s commitment to community service, integrity, leadership, and creativity.
Story | MLK Awards page
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Kate Brown receives grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities
Brown, the Thomas M. Siebel Distinguished Professor in History of Science, has been awarded an NEH grant for a project is titled "Little Gardens Everywhere: The Self-Provisioning City in the Long 20th Century."
NEH Announcement | List of Grants | Kate Brown webpage
HISTORY
Harriet Ritvo named a Fellow of the Linnean Society
Ritvo, the Arthur J. Connor Professor of History Emeritus works in the fields of environmental and natural history, the history of human-animal relations, and British and British empire history. She is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Harriet Ritvo webpage
ECONOMICS
Simon Jäger receives 2022 Research Fellowship from Alfred Sloan Foundation
Awarded to 118 of the brightest young scientists across the U.S. and Canada, the Sloan Research Fellowships are among the most competitive awards available to early-career researchers. Jager holds the Silverman Family Career Development Chair in the MIT Department of Economics.
Press Release | Simon Jäger
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Sherry Turkle named 2021 National Jewish Book Award winner
Turkle was awarded the 2021 Krauss Family Award in Memory of Simon & Shulamith (Sofi) Goldberg for her memoir The Empathy Diaries.
Award announcement | About the book
MARCH
Marcia Bartusiak, Professor of the Practice of Science Writing emeritus
SCIENCE WRITING
Bartusiak named Distinguished Lecturer by Sigma Xi Scientific Honorary Society
Marcia Bartusiak, Professor of the Practice of Science Writing emeritus, will give lectures during 2022-23. Sigma Xi is designed to reward excellence in scientific research and to encourage a sense of companionship and cooperation among scientists in all fields.
Announcement | Becoming a lecturer
LINGUISTICS
Fostering an enriching and compassionate research environment
Committed to Caring honoree Athulya Aravind helps her graduate students navigate research and academia.
Story at MIT News
APRIL
Vipin Narang, Frank Stanton Professor of Nuclear Security and Political Science; photo by Stuart Darsch
POLITICAL SCIENCE + SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM
Narang named Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy
Vipin Narang, the Frank Stanton Professor of Nuclear Security and Political Science, and "the country’s leading scholar of nuclear strategy and proliferation, will work on a team responsible for interagency coordination and international engagement on space policy and strategy, which includes nuclear, cyber, and missile defense policy.
Story
MAY
Amy Moran-Thomas, Hayes Career Development Associate Professor of Anthropology; photo, Jon Sachs
ANTHROPOLOGY
Amy Moran-Thomas receives MIT's 2022 Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award
Recognized for her interdisciplinary work on health, climate, and equity. The Edgerton Award Selection Committee writes that anthropologist Moran-Thomas “stands out in [her] field by bringing a humanistic approach into dialogue with environmental and science studies to investigate how bodily health is shaped by social well-being at the community level and further conditioned by localized planetary imbalances."
Story | Amy Moran-Thomas
GLOBAL LANGUAGES
Per Urlaub to serve as new Director of MIT Global Languages
Urlaub, who is currently Associate Dean of the Language Schools at Middlebury College, will assume this role on July 1, 2022. His academic home will be MIT Literature. Urlaub has a distinguished career as a leader in humanistic language instruction. He will succeed Emma Teng, the T.T. and Wei Fong Chao Professor of Asian Civilizations, whose leadership, Dean Rayo writes, "has been a paradigm of thoughtfulness and integrity."
MIT Global Languages | Per Urlaub | Emma Teng
GLOBAL LANGUAGES + HISTORY
SHASS faculty win Teaching with Digital Technology Awards
Takako Aikawa, Leanna Rezvani of Global Languages, and Emma Teng, of History and Global Languages, have received 2022 awards for innovative teaching using digital technology. Now in its seventh year, the Teaching with Digital Technology Awards are student-nominated awards for instructors who have effectively used digital technology to improve teaching and learning at MIT.
Story via Open Learning
ECONOMICS
Alberto Abadie elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Abadie, professor of economics and associate director of the MIT IDSS joins six other MIT faculty members elected to the Academy this spring. Of Abadie and other new members, AAAS President David Oxtoby said: “These individuals excel in ways that excite us and inspire us at a time when recognizing excellence, commending expertise, and working toward the common good is absolutely essential to realizing a better future.”
Story at MIT News | Alberto Abadie
WOMENS & GENDER STUDIES
Historian Lerna Ekmekçioğlu to head Womens & Gender Studies
Ekmekçioğlu, the McMillan-Stewart Associate Professor of History and winner of the 2016 Levitan Teaching Award, will succeed Helen Elaine Lee, Professor of Writing, whose many contributions to MIT and MIT-WGS include co-founding the My Sister's Keeper Program. Warmest thanks Helen! Congratulations Lerna!
Womens & Gender Studies | My Sister's Keeper | Helen Elaine Lee | Lerna Ekmekcioglu
Lerna Ekmekçioğlu, MacMillan-Stewart Associate Professor of History; photo by Allegra Boverman
MIT DIGITAL HUMANITIES
Historian Catherine E. Clark to head MIT Digital Humanities Program
Clark, Associate Professor of History and French Studies, will serve as Director of MIT Digital Humanities starting 1 June, 2022. She is a cultural historian of modern Europe, whose research is concerned with how the visual produces knowledge. As Director of MIT Digital Humanities, she follows Stephanie Frampton, Associate Professor of Classical Literature, who we thank for superb leadership of the program over the past two years.
MIT Digital Humanities | Stephanie Frampton | Catherine E. Clark
ANTHROPOLOGY
Manduhai Buyandelger receives Seed Award from MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium
Professor of Anthropology Buyandelger's project, "Anthro-Engineering Decarbonization at the Million-Person Scale" is a collaboration with Michael Short, Class of ’42 Associate Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.
About the MCSC Seed Awards | Manduhai Buyandelger
Manduhai Buyandelger, Associate Professor of Anthropology at MIT; photo by Casey Atkins
JUNE
Graham Jones, Professor of Anthropology; photo by Jon Sachs
ANTHROPOLOGY
Graham Jones receives a 2022 Bose grant for ambitious ideas
Jones and and Arvind Satayanaryan (of EECS) received the award for their collaborative project — “Magical Data Visualization” — which uses performance magic to create new visualizations that are responsive to the users’ intent, potentially impacting/reducing the spread of misinformation and disinformation.
Story at MIT News
COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES / SCIENCE WRITING
Professsor Aswin Punathambekar SM '03 joins Annenberg
A global communications scholar, Professor Punathambekar has been appointed Annenberg's newest Professor of Communications and will direct the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication, effective 1 June 2022.
Story | CMS/W Profile of Dr. Punathambekar
JULY / AUGUST
HISTORY
Christopher Capozzola named senior associate dean for MIT Open Learning
Professor of history and public history advocate will oversee open education offerings and campus-focused services.
Story | Christopher Capozzola
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Sherry Turkle among 2022 Champions of Freedom Award winners
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) announced the five individuals it will be honoring at its annual Champions of Freedom Awards ceremony, to be held on September 21st in Washington, DC. EPIC established the Champions of Freedom Awards in 2004 to honor individuals and organizations that have worked to safeguard the right to privacy, open government, and democratic values with courage and integrity.
Announcement | About Sherry Turkle
PHILOSOPHY + MANAGEMENT
Caspar Hare, Georgia Perakis named associate deans of Social & Ethical Responsibilities of Computing
Hare, a Professor of Philosophy, and Perakis, the Pounds Professor of Management in the Sloan School, will work together to advance the cross-cutting initiative of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.
Story | Caspar Hare | Georgia Perakis
ECONOMICS
David Autor appointed to U.S. Foreign Affairs Policy Board
Secretary of State Antony Blinken selected Autor for this major role alongside a team of powerhouse experts to help guide U.S. foreign policy. "With expertise at the intersection of foreign and domestic policy, the Board will focus on the issues of increasing importance to the lives and livelihoods of Americans in the decade ahead, including cybersecurity and emerging technologies, climate and energy, international economics, global health, and strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China." Autor is the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT and a co-director of the MIT Blueprint Labs.
Press release, U.S. State Department | David Autor | Blueprint Labs
ECONOMICS & LINGUISTICS
QS ranks MIT the world's No. 1 university for 2022-2023
Earning the top spot for the 11th straight year, the Institute also placed first in 12 subject areas, including Linguistics, and second, worldwide, for Economics.
Story | MIT Linguistics | MIT Economics
HASTS DOCTORAL PROGRAM (HISTORY; ANTHROPOLOGY; SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY)
Luísa Reis-Castro PhD'21 wins 2022 Singer Prize
British Society for the History of Science awarded Reis-Castro this year's Singer Prize for her winning essay entry, to be published in The British Journal for the History of Science.
Announcement on Twitter | About Luísa Reis-Castro
SEPTEMBER