A new focus on understanding the human element

A new MIT initiative aims to elevate human-centered research and teaching, and bring together scholars in the humanities, arts, and social sciences with their colleagues across the Institute.

The MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) launched earlier this fall. A formal kickoff event for MITHIC was held on campus Monday, Oct. 28, before a full audience in MIT’s Huntington Hall (Room 10-250). The event featured a conversation with Min Jin Lee, acclaimed author of “Pachinko,” moderated by Linda Pizzuti Henry SM ’05, co-owner and CEO of Boston Globe Media.

Initiative leaders say MITHIC will foster creativity, inquiry, and understanding, amplifying the Institute’s impact on global challenges like climate change, AI, pandemics, poverty, democracy, and more.

President Sally Kornbluth says MITHIC is the first of a new model known as the MIT Collaboratives, designed among other things to foster and support new collaborations on compelling global problems. The next MIT Collaborative will focus on life sciences and health.

“The MIT Collaboratives will make it easier for our faculty to ‘go big’ — to pursue the most innovative ideas in their disciplines and build connections to other fields,” says Kornbluth.

“We created MITHIC with a particular focus on the human-centered fields, to help advance research with the potential for global impact. MITHIC also has another, more local aim: to support faculty in developing fresh approaches to teaching and research that will engage and inspire a new generation of students,” Kornbluth adds.

A transformative opportunity

MITHIC is co-chaired by Anantha Chandrakasan, chief innovation and strategy officer, dean of the School of Engineering, and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; and Agustin Rayo, Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS).

“MITHIC is an incredibly exciting and meaningful initiative to me as it represents MIT at its core — bringing broad perspectives and human insights to solve some of the world’s most important problems,” says Chandrakasan. “It offers the opportunity to shape the future of research and education at MIT through advancing core scholarship in the individual humanities, arts, and social sciences disciplines, but also through cross-cutting problem formulation and problem-solving. I have no doubt MITHIC will inspire our community to think differently and work together in ways that will have a lasting impact on society.”

Rayo says true innovation must go beyond technology to encompass the full complexity of the human experience.

“At MIT, we aim to make the world a better place. But you can’t make the world a better place unless you understand its full economic, political, social, ethical — human — dimensions,” Rayo says. “MITHIC can help ensure that MIT educates broad-minded students, who are ready for the multidimensional challenges of the future.”

Rayo sees MITHIC as a transformative opportunity for MIT.

“MIT needs an integrated approach, which combines STEM with the human-centered disciplines. MITHIC can help catalyze that integration,” he says.

Mark Gorenberg ’76, chair of the MIT Corporation, says MITHIC represents a commitment to collaboration, a spirit of curiosity, and the belief that uniting the humanities and sciences results in solutions that are not only innovative, but meaningful and lasting.

“MIT has long been a place where boundless ideas and entrepreneurial energy come together to meet the world’s toughest challenges,” Gorenberg says. “With MITHIC, we’re adding a powerful new layer to that mission — one that captures the richness of human experience and imagination.”

Support for MITHIC comes from all five MIT schools, the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, and the Office of the Provost, along with philanthropic support.

Charlene Kabcenell ’79, a life member of the MIT Corporation, and Derry Kabcenell ’75 chose to support MITHIC financially.

“MIT produces world-class scientists and technologists, but expertise in the skills of these areas is not enough. We are excited that the collaborations catalyzed by this initiative will help our graduates to stay mindful of the impact of their work on people and society,” they say.

Ray Stata ’57, MIT Corporation life member emeritus, is also a benefactor of MITHIC.

“In industry, it is not just technical innovation and breakthroughs that win, but also culture, in the ways people collaborate and work together. These are skills and behaviors that can be learned through a deeper understanding of humanities and social sciences. This has always been an important part of MIT’s education and I am happy to see the renewed attention being given to this aspect of the learning experience,” he says.

“A potential game changer”

Keeril Makan, associate dean for strategic initiatives in SHASS and the Michael (1949) and Sonja Koerner Music Composition Professor, is the faculty lead for MITHIC.

“MITHIC is about incentivizing collaboration, not research in specific areas,” says Makan. “It’s a ground-up approach, where we support faculty based upon the research that is of interest to them, which they identify.”

MITHIC consists of three new funding opportunities for faculty, the largest of which is the SHASS+ Connectivity Fund. For all three funds, proposals can be for projects ready to begin, as well as planning grants in preparation for future proposals.

The SHASS+ Connectivity Fund will support research that bridges between SHASS fields and other fields at MIT. Proposals require a project lead in SHASS and another project lead whose primary appointment is outside of SHASS.

The SHASS+ Connectivity Fund is co-chaired by David Kaiser, the Germehausen Professor of the History of Science and professor of physics, and Maria Yang, deputy dean of engineering and Kendall Rohsenow Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

“MIT has set an ambitious agenda for itself focused on addressing extremely complex and challenging problems facing society today, such as climate change, and there is a critical role for technological solutions to address these problems,” Yang says. “However, the origin of these problems are in part  due to humans, so humanistic considerations need to be part of the solution. Such problems cannot be conquered by technology alone.”

Yang says the goal of the SHASS+ Connectivity Fund is to enhance MIT’s research by building interdisciplinary teams, embedding a human-centered focus.

“My hope is that these collaborations will build bridges between SHASS and the rest of MIT, and will lead to integrated research that is more powerful and meaningful together,” says Yang.

Proposals for the first round of projects are due Nov. 22, but MITHIC is already bringing MIT faculty together to share ideas in hopes of sparking ideas for potential collaboration.

An information session and networking reception was held in September. MITHIC has also been hosting a series of “Meeting of the Minds” events. Makan says these have been opportunities for faculty and teaching staff to make connections around a specific topic or area of interest with colleagues they haven’t previously worked with.

Recent Meeting of the Minds sessions have been held on topics like cybersecurity, social history of math, food security, and rebuilding Ukraine.

“Faculty are already educating each other about their disciplines,” says Makan. “What happens in SHASS has been opaque to faculty in the other schools, just as the research in the other schools has been opaque to the faculty in SHASS. We’ve seen progress with initiatives like the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC), when it comes to computing. MITHIC will broaden that scope.”

The leadership of MITHIC is cross-disciplinary, with a steering committee of faculty representing all five schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.

Iain Cheeseman, the Herman and Margaret Sokol Professor of Biology, is a member of the MITHIC steering committee. He says that while he continues to be amazed and inspired by the diverse research and work from across MIT, there’s potential to go even further by working together and connecting across diverse perspectives, ideas, and approaches.

“The bold goal and mission of MITHIC, to connect the humanities at MIT to work being conducted across the other schools at MIT, feels like a potential game-changer,” he says. “I am really excited to see the unexpected new work and directions that come out of this initiative, including hopefully connections that persist and transform the work across MIT.”

Enhancing the arts and humanities

In addition to the SHASS+ Connectivity Fund, MITHIC has two funds aimed specifically at enhancing research and teaching within SHASS.

The Humanities Cultivation Fund will support projects from the humanities and arts in SHASS. It is co-chaired by Arthur Bahr, professor of literature, and Anne McCants, the Ann F. Friedlaender Professor of History and SHASS research chair.

“Humanistic scholarship and artistic creation have long been among MIT’s hidden gems. The Humanities Cultivation Fund offers an exciting new opportunity to not only allow such work to continue to flourish, but also to give it greater visibility across the MIT community and into the wider world of scholarship. The fund aspires to cultivate — that is, to seed and nurture — new ideas and modes of inquiry into the full spectrum of human culture and expression,” says McCants.

The SHASS Education Innovation Fund will support new educational approaches in SHASS fields. The fund is co-chaired by Eric Klopfer, professor of comparative media studies/writing, and Emily Richmond Pollock, associate professor of music and SHASS undergraduate education chair.

Pollock says the fund is a welcome chance to support colleagues who have a strong sense of where teaching in SHASS could go next.

“We are looking for efforts that address contemporary challenges of teaching and learning, with approaches that can be tested in a specific context and later applied across the school. The crucial role of SHASS in educating MIT students in all fields means that what we devise here in our curriculum can have huge benefits for the Institute as a whole.”

Makan says infusing MIT’s human-centered disciplines with support is an essential part of MITHIC.

“The stronger these units are, the more the human-centered disciplines permeate the student experience, ultimately helping to build a stronger, more inclusive MIT,” says Makan.