Discover the 2025 Tenured Faculty Members in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a diverse group of scholars and artists are making significant contributions to their respective fields. Here are some of the notable individuals who call MIT their academic home.
Naoki Egami is a professor in the Department of Political Science. His expertise lies in political methodology, where he develops statistical methods for questions in political science and the social sciences. As a faculty affiliate of the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, his current research programs focus on external validity and generalizability, machine learning and AI for the social sciences, and causal inference with network and spatial data.
Rachel Fraser is an associate professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Before joining MIT, she taught at the University of Oxford, where she also completed her graduate work in philosophy. Her main project is a book manuscript on the epistemology of narrative. Fraser's interests span epistemology, language, feminism, aesthetics, and political philosophy.
Sara Brown is an associate professor in the Music and Theater Arts Section at MIT. Brown's work is rooted in curiosity and interdisciplinary collaboration. She develops stage designs for theater, opera, and dance. Her recent projects include "Carousel" at the Boston Lyric Opera, "The Other Shore" at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and Jacob's Pillow, and "The Lehman Trilogy" at the Huntington Theatre Company. Brown is also co-directing an upcoming work, "Circlusion," which takes place within a fully immersive inflatable space.
Viola Schmitt is an associate professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, with a special interest in semantics. She earned her PhD in linguistics from the University of Vienna and has worked as a postdoc and/or lecturer at the Universities of Vienna, Graz, Göttingen, and at the University of California at Los Angeles. Schmitt's work focuses on understanding general constraints on human language meaning. Her most recent position was as a junior professor at Humboldt University in Berlin.
Miguel Zenón is an associate professor in the Music and Theater Arts Section. He studied at the University of Puerto Rico before attending MIT. Zenón is a Grammy Award winner, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and Doris Duke Artist Award recipient. As a band leader, he has released 18 albums and collaborated with numerous great musicians and ensembles.
Brian Hedden is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, with a shared appointment in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Hedden's research focuses on how we ought to form beliefs and make decisions, working in epistemology, decision theory, and ethics, including ethics of AI. He is the author of "Reasons without Persons: Rationality, Identity, and Time" (Oxford University Press, 2015) and has published articles on topics including collective action problems, legal standards of proof, algorithmic fairness, and political polarization, among others.
Each of these individuals brings a unique perspective and expertise to MIT, enriching the academic community and pushing the boundaries of knowledge in their respective fields.
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