Meet the 2026 tenured professors in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Faculty members granted tenure in Comparative Media Studies/Writing, Economics, Political Science, and Theater.
Department
Music and Theater Arts
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences welcomes six new faculty for 2026
New professors join the Comparative Media Studies/Writing, Economics, Linguistics, and Music and Theater Arts departments.
Building a scholarly community
The SHASS Faculty Fellows Program, administered by the MIT Human Insight Collaborative, is fostering new research projects and creating space for supportive and interdisciplinary discussion.
Inaugural Music Technology Research Showcase celebrates work of new graduate program’s initial students
Associate Professor Anna Huang delivers the keynote address, “In Search of Human-AI Resonance,” to a capacity crowd.
The crucial human component in computing and AI
The MIT Ethics of Computing Research Symposium brought together experts and researchers working at the heart of ethical and social impact in technology.
One stage at a time
Associate Professor Sara Brown, an accomplished theater set designer, teaches MIT students to create and think visually.
Jazz in the key of life
Saxophonist Miguel Zenón, a Grammy-winning MIT faculty member, creates a distinctive blend of jazz and traditional Puerto Rican music.
Seeing sounds
Mariano Salcedo ’25, a master’s student in the new Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program, is designing an AI to visualize and express music and other sounds.
Recreating the forms and sounds of historical musical instruments
Through an interdisciplinary collaboration between MIT and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, researchers are creating playable physical and synthesized replicas.
Bringing the stage to the classroom
21T.100 (Theater Arts Production) gathers MIT students, faculty, staff, and other professionals to produce feature-length performances.
Times Higher Education ranks MIT No. 1 in arts and humanities, business and economics, and social sciences for 2026
Top worldwide honors span disciplines across three MIT schools for the second year in a row.
Keeril Makan named vice provost for the arts
An acclaimed composer and longtime MIT faculty member, Makan will direct the next act in MIT’s story of artistic leadership.
The “delicious joy” of creating and recreating music
Leslie Tilley combines deep experience as a musician with cultural and formal analysis, to see how people refashion music anew.
A new lens on humanity
The inaugural MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) Annual Event showcased the breadth of projects supported in the first year of the presidential initiative.
Q&A: How MITHIC is fostering a culture of collaboration at MIT
A presidential initiative, the MIT Human Insight Collaborative is supporting new interdisciplinary initiatives and projects across the Institute.