Anthropology

depiction of early human cooking near hot spring

Did our early ancestors boil their food in hot springs?

Scientists have found evidence of hot springs near sites where ancient hominids settled, long before the control of fire.

September 15, 2020

A collage featuring 7 of 31 winners of the 2020 Teaching With Digital Technology Awards.

Winners of 2020 Teaching With Digital Technology Award recognized for their innovations

Thirty-one MIT instructors honored for digital teaching excellence in extraordinary circumstances.

September 9, 2020

Graduate student Summer Jackson in Killian Court at MIT.

Studying the cultures of companies

PhD student and “organizational ethnographer” Summer Jackson investigates the complex social hierarchies that govern the way we work.

July 9, 2020

“Learning is not just about having a professor transfer knowledge but also about the life-long lessons that you pick up from teachers in the process," one nominator wrote in support of Amah Edoh's receipt of the Everett Moore Baker Award.

Associate Professor Amah Edoh receives Baker Award for undergraduate teaching

Anthropologist honored by MIT students as "a mentor, a role model, and someone who is truly making a difference."

June 3, 2020

Beyond the hyper-rational debates of "jobs vs. environment" — and based on her own family heritage and home territory — MIT anthropologist Amy Moran-Thomas illuminates "the cultural underpinnings that have allowed anti-science propaganda to gain traction in America and continue in the face of mounting evidence."

Associate Professor Amy Moran-Thomas receives the 2020 Levitan Prize in the Humanities

The award will support the MIT anthropologist's research on the cultural dimensions of climate denialism.

April 24, 2020

Susan Silbey, the Leon and Anne Goldberg Professor of Humanities, Sociology and Anthropology, and Professor of Behavioral and Policy Sciences at the Sloan School of Management, delivering the 48th Annual James R. Killian, Jr. Faculty Achievement Award Lecture at MIT on Tuesday, February 11, 2020.

Understanding law in everyday life

Susan Silbey, a pioneer in studying popular attitudes toward the legal system, discussed her research while giving MIT’s annual Killian Lecture.

February 13, 2020

Jeanne Guillemin was described by The New York Times as a “scientific sleuth” and the Washington Post as a “pioneering researcher” in obituaries that lauded her groundbreaking work in biological warfare — a field where men had long outnumbered their female colleagues.

Jeanne Guillemin, biological warfare expert and senior advisor at MIT, dies at 76

A sought-after analyst on the use of biological weapons, she was a model of interdisciplinary excellence to all — especially women.

January 7, 2020

Jose Gomez-Marquez holding an open glucometer prototype at MIT Little Devices Lab

A closer look at the diabetes disaster

In a new book, Amy Moran-Thomas examines how diabetes is reaching epidemic levels in countries across the world.

December 17, 2019

“MIT is the best place to be an anthropologist studying issues of science and technology," says Timothy Loh, a sophomore in the HASTS PhD program. "It’s a place where we’re able to think deeply and critically about how scientific knowledge and authority is constructed."

Uncovering the role of technology and medicine in deaf and signing worlds

Timothy Loh, a HASTS program doctoral student studying deafness, sign language, and technology, is a sociocultural and medical anthropologist-in-training.

December 5, 2019

"What does it mean," Aidinoff asks "when civil rights become about access to computers and the internet? When lack of internet access is considered a form of poverty? These questions were getting under my skin," he says. "I wanted to know how social and economic policy were tied to changing ideas about technology."

PhD student Marc Aidinoff explores how technology impacts public policy

Historian's research focuses on understanding how visions for social and economic policy are tied to changing ideas about technology.

November 18, 2019

Prathima Muniyappa (with camera) and other class members examining a student demo. In studying various ambiguous images and works, students discover how emotional content and prior experiences contribute to what we think we see.

The technology of enchantment

In a new anthropology and studio art course, MIT students investigate the human dimensions of interacting with technologies.

November 7, 2019

Computing and artificial intelligence: Humanistic perspectives from MIT

How the humanities, arts, and social science fields can help shape the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing — and benefit from advanced computing.

September 24, 2019

MIT engineering students display the frescoes and mosaics that they created at the Caetani Castle in Sermoneta, Italy.

A new lens into the past

Summer program in civil and environmental engineering examines the intersection of modern engineering and cultural heritage.

September 19, 2019

High-resolution mapping of the distribution of elements in a sample from the 2,000-year-old Temple Scroll, as shown by the colors at the right of this image, is providing insight into the scroll's ancient fabrication methods.

How to make a book last for millennia

Study of Dead Sea Scroll sheds light on a lost ancient parchment-making technology.

September 6, 2019

When rats work to protect human safety

PhD student Jia Hui Lee studies global differences in how humans relate to other animals, including rats that detect land mines.

September 5, 2019

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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