This is another in a series of articles on faculty members' appointments to named professorships.
Professor Sherry R. Turkle of the Program in Science, Technology and Society is the newest holder of the Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professorship for a five-year term. The chair was established in 1963 by Laurance S. Rockefeller and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to honor their sister, the late Mrs. Mauze, a leader in the advancement of women in the professions, industry and the arts.
Professor Turkle is a sociologist and a licensed clinical psychologist. She is an internationally known scholar on the psychological and cultural impact of the computer. Her current research is on the psychological impact of people's relationships with increasingly "relational" artifacts, including virtual pets and digital dolls. Her many writings include the books Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (Simon and Schuster, 1995) and The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (Simon and Schuster, 1995).
Professor Turkle joined MIT as a research fellow in sociology in 1975 and was appointed to the faculty a year later as an assistant professor. She was promoted to associate professor of sociology in 1980 and professor in the sociology of science in 1991. She has also been affiliated with the Laboratory for Computer Science since 1976. She received the AB in social studies from Radcliffe College in 1970, the MA in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1973 and the PhD in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard University in 1976.
Nicolas Wey-Gomez, assistant professor of Hispanic studies in the foreign languages and literatures section, is the inaugural holder of the Class of 1954 Career Development Professorship for a three-year term. The class established the chair in celebration of its 40th reunion to recognize exceptional promise in gifted young faculty.
Professor Wey-Gomez received the BA in Latin American studies from Brandeis University in 1986 and the MA (1991) and PhD (1995) in Latin American literature from Johns Hopkins University. He also received the MA from Johns Hopkins in 1987.
Professor Wey-Gomez was appointed instructor in Spanish at MIT in 1993 and assistant professor of Hispanic studies in 1995. He was a senior fellow at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology in 1998-99 and held the Old Dominion Fellowship at MIT the same year. His fields of interest include Spanish-American colonial literature, Golden Age literature, Caribbean history, the history of science, and US-Latino literature and film.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 3, 1999.
