Seth Mnookin and Heather Paxson named faculty co-leads of the MIT Human Insight Collaborative

Seth Mnookin and Heather Paxson have been appointed as faculty co-leads of the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC). 

MITHIC is a presidential initiative founded in 2024 with a mission to elevate human-centered research and teaching, and bring together scholars in the humanities, arts, and social sciences with their colleagues across the Institute. Since MITHIC’s inception, it has provided $4.7 million in funding to 56 projects across 26 MIT units.

Mnookin is a professor of science writing and serves as the head of Comparative Media Studies/Writing and the director of the Graduate Program in Science Writing, MIT’s year-long masters program in science journalism. 

Paxson is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and serves as associate dean for faculty for SHASS. She teaches courses on food, family, and the meaning of life.

They replace inaugural MITHIC faculty lead Keeril Makan, the Michael (1949) and Sonja Koerner Music Composition Professor, who began serving as Vice Provost for the Arts on February 1.

“Heather and Seth are exceptional leaders,” says Agustín Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), and co-chair of MITHIC. “I couldn’t be more excited about having them take MITHIC’s helm, with Heather focused on strengthening the MITHIC foundation and Seth on building, and implementing, a vision for the next chapter of MITHIC.”

“In just the year and a half since MITHIC launched, it has already done so much to foster collaboration between the humanities and other fields, cultivate new scholarship in the humanities, and support new pedagogical and curricular approaches,” adds Provost Anantha Chandrakasan, co-chair of MITHIC. “I have no doubt that under the leadership of Professors Seth Mnookin and Heather Paxson, MITHIC’s success will continue, with important benefits for students, faculty, and staff in SHASS and across the Institute.”

Mnookin says he’s deeply honored to serve as co-faculty lead of MITHIC at a moment when the humanities are essential to how we imagine our collective future. 

“MITHIC affirms that humanistic inquiry, grounded in interpretation, creativity, and ethical reasoning, is central to addressing the most consequential challenges facing society today,” adds Mnookin. “As AI reshapes education, academia, and everyday life, MITHIC-funded projects can play a crucial role in interrogating not only what these technologies can do, but what we want them to do—and what kind of human future they should serve.”

“I am excited to work with Seth to amplify our school’s contributions to humanistic and social inquiry and to create further opportunities for community as well as for the professional enrichment and advancement of SHASS faculty,” adds Paxson.

Mnookin is a longtime journalist and author, and was a 2019-2020 Guggenheim Fellow. His most recent book, “The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy,” won the National Association of Science Writers “Science in Society” Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2020, the Polish translation of “The Panic Virus” won Jagiellonian University’s “Smart Book of the Year” Editors Award. 

He is also the author of the 2006 New York Times bestseller “Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top,” and 2004′s “Hard News: The Scandals at The New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media,”which was was named a Washington Post Best Book of the Year.

He graduated from Harvard College in 1994 with a degree in History and Science, and was a 2004 Joan Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Paxson received her PhD in Anthropology from Stanford University and BA from Haverford College. In 2014, she was named a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, and in 2008, she received the James A. and Ruth Levitan Research Prize in the Humanities.

Paxson is the author of two books, “The Life of Cheese: Crafting Food and Value in America” and “Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece,” and editor of the volume “Eating beside Ourselves: Thresholds of Foods and Bodies.” Her current research concerns the practical and semiotic work of importing perishable foods across regulatory borders.