SHASS News

In Berlin in the early 1870s, tourists began visiting a neighborhood called Barackia. It did not have museums, palaces, or any other typical attractions. Barackia was a working-class neighborhood where people grew their own food, lived in small dwellings, and established communal arrangements outside the normal reach of government. For a while, anyway: In 1872, […]

What if there were a way to create accurate replicas of ancient and historical instruments that could be played and heard?  In late 2024, senior MIT postdoc Benjamin Sabatini wrote MIT Professor Eran Egozy to ask just that, and about a collaborative research project between the Center for Materials Research in Archeology and Ethnology (CMRAE) and […]

Leslie “Les” Perelman, an influential figure in college writing assessment; a champion of writing instruction across all subject matters for over three decades at MIT; and a former MIT associate dean for undergraduate education, died on Nov. 12, 2025, at home in Lexington, Massachusetts. He was 77. A Los Angeles native, Perelman attended the University […]

Originally from the small Balkan country of Montenegro, Strahinja (Strajo) Janjusevic says his life has unfolded in unexpected ways, for which he is deeply grateful. After graduating from high school, he was selected to represent his country in the United States, studying cyber operations and computer science at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. […]

Biology has long been used in agriculture, medicine, and materials. The 21st century has brought increased investment in biology as a potential tool for humanity’s collective advancement, giving rise to what experts are calling the bioeconomy. The bioeconomy uses renewable biological resources to produce energy, food, health products, and materials.  A new undergraduate MIT course, […]