Meet the 2019-20 MLK Visiting Professors and Scholars
Six scholars and professors are spending this academic year in engagement with the MIT community.
Department
History
A new act for opera
Emily Richmond Pollock’s book examines creative attempts to refashion postwar opera after Germany’s “Year Zero.”
The permanent struggle for liberty
Daron Acemoglu’s new book examines the battle between state and society, which occasionally produces liberal-democratic freedom.
Computing and artificial intelligence: Humanistic perspectives from MIT
How the humanities, arts, and social science fields can help shape the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing — and benefit from advanced computing.
J-WAFS announces 2019 Solutions Grants supporting agriculture and clean water
Projects address access to clean water in Nepal via wearable E. coli test kits, improving the resilience of commercial citrus groves, and more.
Understanding populism
At MIT forum, scholars wrestle with the dynamics of a global political trend.
Uncovering links between architecture, politics, and society
“Every building is ultimately a compromise” involving many stakeholders, says architectural historian Timothy Hyde.
How to make a book last for millennia
Study of Dead Sea Scroll sheds light on a lost ancient parchment-making technology.
A scholar and teacher re-examines moments in the history of STEM
“I love teaching,” says PhD student Clare Kim. “It’s not that I’m just imparting knowledge, but I want [my students] to develop a critical way of thinking.”
Engineers set the standards
MIT business historian’s new book chronicles the emergence of global standardization in technology.
In cancer research, a winding road to discovery
Book by MIT professor examines the circuitous history behind the investigation of cancer as a contagious illness.
From science class to the stock exchange
“I’m all about finding connections,” says senior Stephon Henry-Rerrie about his path from engineering to the financial sector.
3 Questions: Why are student-athletes amateurs?
MIT Professor Jennifer Light digs into the history of the idea that students aren’t part of the labor force.
Learning to study a painful past
Lerna Ekmekçioğlu studies pioneering Armenian women of the 19th and 20th centuries — and helps other scholars enter her field.
How writing technology shaped classical thinking
Stephanie Frampton’s new book explores the written word in the Roman world.