Alumni - MIT HASTS

Originally called History and Social Study of Science and Technology (HSSST), and renamed to History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society (HASTS) in 2004, the program has granted 112 doctoral degrees since its inception in 1988. HASTS alumni bring deep intellectual curiosity to their professional lives—whether they are serving in academic positions or making their mark at a public agency or private corporation. Read more about what our alumni are doing after graduation in the News and Alumni Books sections of this website.

Lan Li

Dissertation: Intimate Cartographies: Body Maps and the Epistemic Encounter in China and Britain, 1893-1985

Advisor: Emma Tang

Degree Awarded: 2016

Current Affiliation: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Shreeharsh Kelkar

Dissertation: Platformizing Higher Education: Computer Science and the Making of MOOC Infrastructure

Advisor: Graham Jones

Degree Awarded: 2016

Current Affiliation: University of California, Berkeley / personal page

Canay Özden-Schilling

Dissertation: Economy Electric: Techno-Economics, Neoliberalism, and Electricity in the United States

Advisor: Michael M.J. Fischer

Degree Awarded: 2016

Current Affiliation: National University of Singapore

Tom Özden-Schilling

Dissertation: Salvage Cartographies: Mapping, Futures, and Landscapes in Northwest British Columbia

Advisor: Michael M.J. Fischer

Degree Awarded: 2016

Current Affiliation: National University of Singapore

Caterina Scaramelli

Dissertation: Swamps into Wetlands: Water, Conservation Science and Nationhood in Turkey

Advisor: Stefan Helmreich

Degree Awarded: 2016

Current Affiliation: Boston University

Mitali Thakor

Dissertation: Algorithmic Detectives Against Child Trafficking: Data, Entrapment, and the New Global Policing Network

Advisor: Heather Paxson

Degree Awarded: 2016

Current Affiliation: Wesleyan University

Michaela Thompson

Dissertation: Governing the Shark: Predators and People in the Twentieth Century and Beyond

Advisor: Harriet Ritvo

Degree Awarded: 2016

Current Affiliation: MIT

Teasel Muir-Harmony

Dissertation: Project Apollo, Cold War Diplomacy and the American Framing of Global Interdependence

Advisor: David Mindell

Degree Awarded: 2014

Current Affiliation: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Rebecca Perry

Dissertation: Rigging the World: 3D Modeling and the Seduction of the Real

Advisor: Merritt Roe Smith

Degree Awarded: 2014

Current Affiliation: Lux Machina

David Singerman

Dissertation: Inventing Purity in the Atlantic Sugar World, 1860-1930

Advisor: David Kaiser

Degree Awarded: 2014

Current Affiliation: University of Virginia

Ellan Spero

Dissertation: Institutes for Innovation: The Emergence of Academic-Industrial Cooperation and Narratives of Progress in the Early 20th Century

Advisor: Anne McCants

Degree Awarded: 2014

Current Affiliation: MIT / Station1

Nathaniel Deshmukh Towery

Dissertation: Changed Climate: Networking, Professionalization, and Grassroots Organizing in U.S. Environmental Organizations

Advisor: Susan Silbey

Degree Awarded: 2014

Current Affiliation: Volpe - The National Transportation Systems Center

Emily Wanderer

Dissertation: Making Biosecurity, Making Mexico: An Ethnography of Biological Invasion

Advisor: Stefan Helmreich

Degree Awarded: 2014

Current Affiliation: University of Pittsburgh

Benjamin Wilson

Dissertation: Insiders and Outsiders: Nuclear Arms Control Experts in Cold War America

Advisor: David Kaiser

Degree Awarded: 2014

Current Affiliation: Harvard University

Laurel Braitman

Dissertation: Animal Madness: A Natural History of Disorder

Advisor: Harriet Ritvo

Degree Awarded: 2013

Current Affiliation: Stanford University

Shekhar Krishnan

Dissertation: Empire's Metropolis: Money Time & Space in Colonial Bombay, 1870-1940

Advisor: Michael M.J. Fischer

Degree Awarded: 2013

Current Affiliation: Maharashtra State Police; Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai

Alma Steingart

Dissertation: Conditional Inequalities: American Pure and Applied Mathematics, 1940-1975

Advisor: David Kaiser

Degree Awarded: 2013

Current Affiliation: Columbia University

Rebecca Woods

Dissertation: The Herds Shot Round the World: Native Breeds and the British Empire, 1800-1900

Advisor: Harriet Ritvo

Degree Awarded: 2013

Current Affiliation: University of Toronto

Peter Doshi

Dissertation: Influenza: A Study of Contemporary Medical Politics

Advisor: Theodore Postol

Degree Awarded: 2011

Current Affiliation: University of Maryland School of Pharmacy / The BMJ

Xaq Frohlich

Dissertation: Accounting for Taste: Regulating Food Labeling in the 'Affluent Society', 1945-1995

Advisor: Deborah Fitzgerald

Degree Awarded: 2011

Current Affiliation: Auburn University

Lisa Messeri

Dissertation: Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds

Advisor: Stefan Helmreich

Degree Awarded: 2011

Current Affiliation: Yale University

Pages: 1234567

*Alumni with an asterisk (*) next to their name received a degree from another MIT PhD program, but were advised or co-advised by STS faculty members before the HSSST graduate program was created.

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