Uncategorized Archives - MIT HASTS

Third-year HASTS student Odinaka Kingsley Eze is among thirty-two MIT doctoral students to be selected for the 2025-2026 Health and Life Sciences Fellowship (HEALS). This new, highly competitive award recognizes students whose academic research intervenes in pressing problems across the health and life sciences.

As a HEALS fellow, Aka will work with the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas (ANPA) to build a digital infrastructure for re-engineering global health within and outside Africa. This work builds from his HASTS research on the history of biomedical research and medical expertise in Nigeria and African diasporic spaces.

During the fellowship, Aka will also be part of an interdisciplinary cohort of students from across MIT’s five schools. Together, they will complete targeted mentorship sessions with MIT faculty members and leverage a broad base of Institute alumni and industrial partners to grow their respective professional networks. The fellowship will culminate in an symposium wherein the cohort will present their work to the broader Institute community.

This October, the MIT Program in History, Anthropology, and STS (HASTS) launched Contrasts, a magazine of public facing works that intersect science, technology, and society. It is edited and produced by graduate students of the HASTS PhD program.

Oriented around the theme of “portals,” the inaugural issue of the magazine was released on Thursday, October 30th at a celebration that took place in MIT’s Hayden Library. The event featured zine-making, food, and a DJ set curated by Rustam Khan.

To view Contrasts online, readers may visit the magazine’s website at www.contrastsmag.net.

Via the podcast Soonish, technology journalist Wade Roush PhD ’94 has released an interview with David Mindell PhD ’96, Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT.

In a conversation that took cues from overlapping areas of interest in science, technology, and society (STS), the pair discussed Mindell’s recent book, The New Lunar Society: An Enlightenment Guide to the Next Industrial Revolution. The book was published in February 2025 by MIT Press.

On Friday, September 26th, second-year PhD student Gwendolyn Wallace presented new work at the 110th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) in Atlanta, GA. The ASALH was founded in 1915 by Dr. Carter Woodson, a leading African American intellectual of the 20th century.

Participating in a moderated panel on new approaches to Black environmental history, Gwendolyn’s paper was entitled “‘They’re Gonna Build a River:’ Race, Energy, and Arboreal Continuance in the Santee Cooper Basin.”

Established in 2006, the Siegel Prize recognizes a HASTS graduate student who has excelled in their commitment to and performance in MIT’s undergraduate teaching program. This year’s prize committee consisted of STS faculty members William Deringer, Chakanetsa Mavhunga, Eli Nelson, and Michael John Gorman.

In their prize citation, the committee noted, “Zach distinguished himself as a dedicated and innovative educator, bringing both creativity and rigor to his teaching.”

HASTS alum Candis Callison PhD ’10, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous journalism, media, and public discourse at the University of British Columbia, served as this year’s presidential plenary speaker in an event titled “Intersections of Indigenous Studies and STS.” Departing from past formats, the plenary unfolded as a conversation between Callison and Dian Million, a Tanana Athabascan critical theorist and associate professor of American Indian studies at the University of Washington-Seattle. The duo spoke to an overflow crowd at the Seattle Convention Center on Wednesday, September 3.

Anne Pollock PhD ’07, meanwhile, oversaw the meeting as current 4S president. Other program alums who presented work included Rijul Kochhar PhD ’22, Burcu Mutlu PhD ’19, Shreeharsh Kelkar PhD ’16, Emily Wanderer PhD ’14, Chihyung Jeon PhD ’10, Anita Chan PhD ’08, Wen-Hua Kuo PhD ’05 (4S president-elect), and Hannah Landecker PhD ’00. On the evening of Friday, September 5, many current and former members of the community joined together for a lively social hosted by MIT Associate Professor of STS Oliver Rollins.

Prospective applicants who would like to know more about our program and the application process are encouraged to attend the HASTS Prospective Student Visit Day, which will be held via Zoom on Friday, October 3, 2025.

Registration is now open! Register here. Registration closes on Friday, September 26, 2025.

Please note the attendance for small group discussions with HASTS faculty and current HASTS students is limited. If you indicate that “I’d like to attend” for either small group session, you will receive a separate email confirmation to let you know if you were assigned to a group or if you are on a waitlist. The full agenda is posted here.

If you would like to join our email list and receive relevant updates, please fill out this short form.

HASTS PhD candidate Taylor Bailey has been named the 2025-2026 Cain Curatorial Fellow at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Taylor researches wildlife management and environmental conservation science in the nineteenth and twentieth century United States.

As he concludes his HASTS dissertation project, Taylor will gain hands-on experience working with the Institute’s curators and staff on a variety of public-facing projects in the history of science and technology.