SHASS News

What does the future hold for generative AI?
When OpenAI introduced ChatGPT to the world in 2022, it brought generative artificial intelligence into the mainstream and started a snowball effect that led to its rapid integration into industry, scientific research, health care, and the everyday lives of people who use the technology. What comes next for this powerful but imperfect tool? With that […]
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Meet the 2025 tenured professors in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
In 2025, six faculty were granted tenure in the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. Sara Brown is an associate professor in the Music and Theater Arts Section. She develops stage designs for theater, opera, and dance by approaching the scenographic space as a catalyst for collective imagination. Her work is rooted in […]
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Joshua Bennett awarded Institute for Advanced Study fellowship
The prestigious fellowship allows for focused research and the free and open exchange of ideas among an international community of scholars.
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3 Questions: On humanizing scientists
Alan Lightman has spent much of his authorial career writing about scientific discovery, the boundaries of knowledge, and remarkable findings from the world of research. His latest book “The Shape of Wonder,” co-authored with the lauded English astrophysicist Martin Rees and published this month by Penguin Random House, offers both profiles of scientists and an […]
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A better understanding of debilitating head pain
Everyone gets headaches. But not everyone gets cluster headache attacks, a debilitating malady producing acute pain that lasts an hour or two. Cluster headache attacks come in sets — hence the name — and leave people in complete agony, unable to function. A little under 1 percent of the U.S. population suffers from cluster headache. […]
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