SHASS News

Eight with MIT ties win 2025 Hertz Foundation Fellowships
The Hertz Foundation announced that it has awarded fellowships to eight MIT affiliates. The prestigious award provides each recipient with five years of doctoral-level research funding (up to a total of $250,000), which gives them an unusual measure of independence in their graduate work to pursue groundbreaking research. The MIT-affiliated awardees are Matthew Caren ’25; April Qiu Cheng […]
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School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences 2025 Advanced Degree Ceremony
Master’s and doctoral degrees across multiple SHASS graduate programs were conferred during the ceremony.
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Shaping the future through systems thinking
Long before she stepped into a lab, Ananda Santos Figueiredo was stargazing in Brazil, captivated by the cosmos and feeding her curiosity of science through pop culture, books, and the internet. She was drawn to astrophysics for its blend of visual wonder and mathematics. Even as a child, Santos sensed her aspirations reaching beyond the […]
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The sweet taste of a new idea
Behavioral economist Sendhil Mullainathan has never forgotten the pleasure he felt the first time he tasted a delicious crisp, yet gooey Levain cookie. He compares the experience to when he encounters new ideas. “That hedonic pleasure is pretty much the same pleasure I get hearing a new idea, discovering a new way of looking at […]
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Study in India shows several tactics together boost vaccination against deadly diseases
Around the world, low immunizations rates for children are a persistent problem. Now, an experiment conducted in India shows that an inexpensive combination of methods, including text reminders and small financial incentives, has a major impact on immunization. Led by MIT economists, the research finds that a trifecta of incentives, text messages, and information provided […]
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