MacVicar Faculty Fellows

Research areas: Examining the relationships between public policies, public opinion, and political behavior. According to David Singer, department head and the Raphael Dorman-Helen Starbuck Professor of Political Science, Campbell “weaves personal experience into her teaching in powerful ways … Her openness about her experience permits students to share their own … thereby strengthening their own engagement with the material.”

Research areas: Conservatism, the historicization of modernist musical value, operatic institutions, and the relationship between modern musical style and convention. Associate professor of music and MacVicar Faculty Fellow Patricia Tang writes, “Professor Pollock continues to grow as a leader in pedagogical innovation, transforming the music history curriculum and being a true inspiration to her colleagues in her devotion to her students. Though these subjects existed in the course catalog before Pollock’s arrival, in all cases she has radically transformed them, infusing new energy and excitement into the curriculum.”

Research areas: Children’s literature; drama and performance; literature and philosophy; pedagogy; and popular culture. MacVicar Fellow and professor of literature Stephen Tapscott praises Gubar’s experimentation, abstract thinking, and storytelling: “Professor Gubar’s ability to frame intellectual questions in terms of problems, developments, and performance is an important dimension of the genius of her teaching.”

Research areas: Renaissance English literature, Milton, history of the book, literature of travel​. One alumna noted, “Mary’s teaching carried a compassion and ethic which enabled non-humanities students to appreciate literature as a diverse, valuable, and rewarding resource for personal and social reflection.”

Research areas: Economics of education and school reform; social programs and the labor market; the effects of immigration, labor market regulation and institutions; and econometric methods for program and policy evaluation.​ “Joshua Angrist is a path-breaking scholar whose brilliant work has advanced the cause of transparency, robustness, and ultimately credibility in empirical economics and public policy for over three decades,” says Parag Pathak, the Jane Berkowitz Carlton and Dennis William Carlton Professor of Microeconomics.

Research area: Ways in which signifying practices shape moral and epistemological convictions​. “Graham is without peer in my estimation, always leaving a positive, indelible mark on the students,” says Susan Silbey, the Leon and Anne Goldberg Professor of Humanities, Sociology, and Anthropology, a professor of behavioral and policy sciences at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the head of the faculty. “Graham’s classes transform the students, setting them on paths of lifelong learning and self-reflection.”

Research areas: Human interaction with online environments. “Students have the freedom to dive deeper into what really intrigues them without losing sight of the path,” wrote one nominator. “The opportunity for us to personally engage with the content is critical to Taylor’s success in the classroom: It’s how she lets us bridge the gap between the theory and the reality of our personal world,” wrote another.

Research areas: Human capital, skills training, and earnings inequality; “Contingent” and flexible work arrangements; Labor market impacts of technological change; Consequences of employment protection.​ “At my own crossroads when I deliberated between different careers, Prof. Autor cared to find an array of values that motivated me and helped me appreciate how they harmonize. I believe that building these kinds of bridges is at the heart of maintaining diversity and being an agent for it,” one student wrote.

Research areas: Political and cultural history of the United States from the late-19th century to the present Craig Steven Wilder, the Barton L. Weller Professor of History wrote: “[Capozzola’s] commitment to education and learning does not begin and end at the classroom door; rather, he brings students to spaces where they get to see and reinterpret the past, and where they discover how history informs and encompasses their lives.”