SHASS News

The much-touted arrival of “precision medicine” promises tailored technologies that help individuals and may also reduce health care costs. New research shows how pregnancy screening can meet both of these objectives, but the findings also highlight how precision medicine must be matched well with patients to save money. The study involves cfDNA screenings, a type […]

No matter the outcome, the results of the 2024 United States presidential election are certain to have global impact. How are citizens and leaders in other parts of the world viewing this election? What’s at stake for their countries and regions? This was the focus of “The 2024 US Presidential Election: The World is Watching,” […]

Linguist Irene Heim, professor emerita in MIT’s Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, has been named a co-recipient of the 2024 Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy. Heim shares the award with Hans Kamp, a professor of formal logics and philosophy of language at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. Heim and Kamp are being recognized for their […]

MIT economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson PhD ’89, whose work has illuminated the relationship between political systems and economic growth, have been named winners of the 2024 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Political scientist James Robinson, with whom they have worked closely, also shares the award. “Societies with a poor rule […]

For two days at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, participants in the Kuggie Vallee Distinguished Lectures and Workshops celebrated the success of women in science and shared strategies to persist through, or better yet dissipate, the stiff headwinds women still face in the field. “Everyone is here to celebrate and to […]