News From SHASS

Top row, left to right: Sana Aiyar, Sandy Alexandre, Kate Brown, and Stephanie Frampton. Bottom row, left to right: Seth Mnookin, Jay Scheib, Kieran Setiya, and Christine Walley

MIT SHASS announces appointment of new heads for 2024-25

School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

July 11, 2024

School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences appoints new heads across multiple academic units.

IDEAS participants iterate on their social innovations in a workshop during the spring semester.

Empowering future innovators through a social impact lens

PKG Center

July 10, 2024

The IDEAS Social Innovation Challenge helps students hone their entrepreneurship skills to create viable ventures for public good.

Social distance during Covid-19 at the Kalerwe Market, in the suburb of Kampala, Uganda

Researchers study differences in attitudes toward Covid-19 vaccines between women and men in Africa

Will Sullivan | MIT Governance Lab

July 10, 2024

While women and men self-reported similar vaccination rates, unvaccinated women had less intention to get vaccinated than men.

Deborah Fitzgerald addresses attendees during the Symposium on the History of Technology at MIT's Tang Auditorium.

Investigating the past to see technology’s future

Benjamin Daniel | School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

July 9, 2024

During a recent history of technology symposium at MIT, participants shared exciting ideas about the future of their field.

Summer 2024 reading from MIT

MIT News

July 3, 2024

MIT News rounds up recent titles from Institute faculty and staff.

The SiTration team: (standing, from left to right) Tran Nguyen, Jatin Patil, Heeyun Choi Kim, Ahmed Helal, Noah Letwat, Daniel Bregante, and Sarah Melvin; (seated, left to right) Jeff Grossman, Morgan Baima, and Brendan Smith

Pioneering the future of materials extraction

Lauren Paul | Department of Materials Science and Engineering

July 2, 2024

MIT spinout SiTration looks to disrupt industries with a revolutionary process for recovering and extracting critical materials.

Raymond Wang is a native of Hong Kong who witnessed firsthand the shakeup and conflict engendered by China’s takeover of the former British colony. “That type of experience makes you wonder why things are so complicated,” he says. “Why is it so hard to live with your neighbors?”

The rules of the game

Leda Zimmerman | Department of Political Science

July 2, 2024

Rising superpowers like China are “cautious opportunists” in global institutions, and the U.S. should avoid overreaction, PhD student Raymond Wang argues.

Anthony Hallee-Farrell, senior program and technical associate for MIT Community Services Office

Faces of MIT: Anthony Hallee-Farrell '13

Katy Dandurand | MIT Human Resources

June 28, 2024

The senior program and technical associate for the Community Services Office has been a supporter of the MIT community since he arrived on campus as a student.

Fotini Christia, the Ford International Professor of Social Sciences in the Department of Political Science, has been named director of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.

Fotini Christia named director of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society

MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

June 27, 2024

Known for building connections between the social sciences, data science, and computation, the political science professor will lead IDSS into its next chapter.

Owen Coté, a principal research scientist, joined the MIT Security Studies Program in 1997 as associate director.

Owen Coté, military technology expert and longtime associate director of the Security Studies Program, dies at 63

MIT Center for International Studies

June 26, 2024

An influential national expert on undersea warfare, Coté is remembered as "the heart and soul of SSP."

The scholarship of David Autor (left) explores labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization. Daniel Rubinfeld SM ’68, PhD ’72 (right) is the Robert L. Bridges Professor of Law and professor of economics emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, and professor of law emeritus at New York University.

David Autor named the inaugural Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor in Economics

Benjamin Daniel | School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

June 18, 2024

The new professorship will enable continued economics scholarship and help the chairholder train and support future economists.

Dancer in the project "Ne:Kahwistará:ken Kanónhsa’kówa í:se Onkwehonwe," by Jackson 2bears, also known as Tékeniyáhsen Ohkwá:ri (Kanien’kehà:ka)

A creation story told through immersive technology

Anya Ventura | Arts at MIT

June 14, 2024

Multimedia artist Jackson 2bears reimagines the Haudenosaunee longhouse and creation story.

“Bob is a boundary pusher, constantly questioning the preconceptions of what a smart, general reader book can be,” says Bill Smith of colleague Bob Prior (pictured), who retires from the MIT Press this month.

Bob Prior: A deep legacy of cultivating books at the MIT Press

Rachel Aldrich | MIT Press

June 12, 2024

After 36 years and hundreds of titles, the executive editor reflects on his career as a “champion of rigorous and brilliant scholarship.”

After completing the MITx MicroMasters in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy program, Andrea Salem (left), Sofia Martinez Galvez (center), and Yann Bourgeois are joining the fight against global poverty using the program’s data-driven approach to poverty alleviation.

How a quantum scientist, a nurse, and an economist are joining the fight against global poverty

Marisa Demers | MIT Open Learning

June 10, 2024

The MITx MicroMasters in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy program educates learners around the world using its data-driven approach to poverty alleviation.

Isaiah Andrews, a professor in MIT’s Department of Economics, is an expert in econometrics, the study of the methods used in economics.

Through econometrics, Isaiah Andrews is making research more robust

Peter Dizikes | MIT News

June 9, 2024

“I would like to understand the extent to which we understand things,” the MIT economist says.

The class brought together undergraduate and graduate students from across the Institute to learn about different technologies and decide on the best path forward.

Students research pathways for MIT to reach decarbonization goals

Zach Winn | MIT News

June 7, 2024

A class this semester challenged students to evaluate technologies to help MIT decarbonize — with implications for organizations across the globe.

Namrata Kala, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, often studies environmental problems and their effects on workers and firms.

Improving working environments amid environmental distress

Peter Dizikes | MIT News

June 7, 2024

Namrata Kala’s wide-ranging research shows how climate change and other factors affect companies and their employees.

Professor Ashesh Rambachan (right) confers with Jimmy Lin, an economics doctoral student, following an Algorithms and Behavioral Science class. The new course’s goals are both scientific (to understand people) and policy-driven (to improve society by improving decisions).

A data-driven approach to making better choices

Benjamin Daniel | School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

June 6, 2024

In the new economics course 14.163 (Algorithms and Behavioral Science), students investigate the deployment of machine-learning tools and their potential to understand people, reduce bias, and improve society.

Professors Erik Lin-Greenberg (center of left photo) and Tracy Slatyer (center of right photo) with their students

Paying it forward

Jody Mou | Office of Graduate Education

June 6, 2024

Professors Erik Lin-Greenberg and Tracy Slatyer are honored as “Committed to Caring.”

Depiction of a primordial black hole forming amid a sea of hot, color-charged quarks and gluons, a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

Exotic black holes could be a byproduct of dark matter

Jennifer Chu | MIT News

June 6, 2024

In the first quintillionth of a second, the universe may have sprouted microscopic black holes with enormous amounts of nuclear charge, MIT physicists propose.

Discounting, the now-common technique for evaluating the present and future value of money by assuming a certain rate of return on that money, originated with English clergy in the 1600s.

The unexpected origins of a modern finance tool

Peter Dizikes | MIT News

June 6, 2024

Discounting calculations are ubiquitous today — thanks partly to the English clergy who spread them amid turmoil in the 1600s, an MIT scholar shows.

QS ranks MIT the world’s No. 1 university for 2024-25

MIT News

June 4, 2024

Ranking at the top for the 13th year in a row, the Institute also places first in 11 subject areas.

“Family firms can be very insular, sticking with old practices and rewarding loyalty to co-ethnic partners,” says political science PhD candidate Sukrit Puri. There are barriers to outside hires who might bring innovations. “These businesses are often just not interested in taking up growth opportunities,” says Puri.

All in the family

Leda Zimmerman | Department of Political Science

June 4, 2024

New studies show that caste and ethnic identity play an outsize role in how business interacts with government in developing countries.

The MIT Press Book Store

MIT Press releases Direct to Open impact report

MIT Press

May 29, 2024

Open-access monographs receive significantly more use and citations than non-open counterparts, and are more successful at reaching audiences beyond academia.

Eli Sanchez, who recently completed his doctoral research on nuclear weapons security, will go on to postdoctoral work in MIT's Security Studies Program.

Modeling the threat of nuclear war

Poornima Apte | Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering

May 29, 2024

As part of his MIT doctoral studies in nuclear science and engineering, Eli Sanchez investigated whether hypersonic missiles threaten global security.

Pages