MIT SHASS announces appointment of new heads for 2024-25

The MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) has announced several changes to the leadership of its academic units for the 2024-25 academic year.

“I’m confident these outstanding members of the SHASS community will provide exceptional leadership. I’m excited to see each implement their vision for the future of their unit,” says Agustin Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of MIT SHASS.

• Christine Walley will serve as head of the Anthropology Section. Walley is the SHASS Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. She received a PhD in anthropology from New York University in 1999. Her first ethnography, “Rough Waters: Nature and Development in an East African Marine Park,” explored environmental conflict in rural Tanzania.

• Seth Mnookin will serve as head of the Comparative Media Studies Program/Writing. Mnookin is a longtime journalist and science writer and was a 2019-20 Guggenheim Fellow. 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. Mnookin will continue in his role as director of the Graduate Program in Science Writing.

• Kieran Setiya will serve as head of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Setiya is a professor of philosophy and is head of the philosophy section. He works mainly in ethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind. He received his PhD in philosophy from Princeton University in 2002.

• In the Literature Section, associate professors Sandy Alexendre and Stephanie Frampton will serve as co-heads. Alexandre’s research spans the late 19th century to present-day Black American literature and culture. She received a PhD in English language and literature from the University of Virginia in 2006. Frampton is also co-chair of the Program in Ancient and Medieval Studies. She received a PhD from Harvard University in comparative literature in 2011.

• Jay Scheib will serve as head of the Music and Theater Arts Section. Scheib is Class of 1949 Professor of Music and Theater Arts. He received an MFA in theater directing from the Columbia University School of the Arts. He is a recipient of the MIT Edgerton Award, the Richard Sherwood Award, a National Endowment for the Arts/TCG fellowship, an OBIE Award for Best Direction, and the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.

• In the Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Kate Brown will serve as head. Brown is the Thomas M. Siebel Distinguished Professor in History of Science. Her research interests illuminate the point where history, science, technology and bio-politics converge to create large-scale disasters and modernist wastelands. Brown will publish “Tiny Gardens Everywhere: A Kaleidoscopic History of the Food Sovereignty Frontier” in 2025 with W.W. Norton & Co. Brown has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the European University Institute, The Kennan Institute, Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and the U.S. Holocaust Museum. She ​​received her PhD in history from the University of Washington at Seattle.

• In the Program in Women’s and Gender Studies, Sana Aiyar will serve as interim head. Aiyar is an associate professor of history, and is a historian of modern South Asia. She received her PhD from Harvard University in 2009 and held an Andrew Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in 2009-10.