Headlines 2022

Thirteen from MIT awarded 2022 Fulbright Fellowships

May 19, 2022 Julia Mongo Office of Distinguished Fellowships

Thirteen MIT undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni have been awarded Fulbright fellowships to pursue projects overseas in the 2022-23 grant year. Another MIT affiliate was offered an award but has not yet decided whether to accept, and others were named alternates and may be promoted in the coming weeks.

From South Africa, a success story for democracy

May 19, 2022 Peter Dizikes MIT News

MIT political scientist Evan Lieberman’s new book, “Until We Have Won Our Liberty,” examines the condition of South Africa, a quarter-century after it became a multiracial democracy.

Eleanor Freund receives Jeanne Guillemin Prize

May 17, 2022 Michelle English MIT Center for International Studies

The daughter of an American diplomat, Eleanor Freund spent most of her childhood living abroad in such places as Madagascar, Ghana, South Africa, and Austria. These experiences, she explains, led to an early interest in politics and international relations.

When dueling narratives deepen a divide

May 16, 2022 Peter Dizikes MIT News

For more than four decades, the U.S. and Iran have had a relentlessly poor relationship. To be sure, it is hardly a shock that tensions would run high between the countries following the hostage crisis of 1979-1981, when Iran held more than 50 U.S. diplomats in captivity for 444 days. Even so, little progress has been made in U.S.-Iran relations in subsequent years.

A business of hope and transformation

May 11, 2022 Leda Zimmerman MIT Department of Political Science

Entrepreneur and political science master’s student Milain Fayulu builds brands to bring change to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Frequency builds familiarity

April 1, 2022 Leda Zimmerman MIT Department of Political Science

Urban street networks that encourage encounters among strangers link to lower ethnic tensions and anti-immigrant hostility.

Reviving war-game scholarship at MIT

March 22, 2022 Eyal Hanfling MIT News/Center for International Studies

War games and crisis simulations are exercises where participants make decisions to simulate real-world behavior. In the field of international security, games are frequently used to study how actors make decisions during conflict, but they can also be used to model human behavior in countless other scenarios. 

The Americanist

March 8, 2022 Leda Zimmerman MIT Department of Political Science

Studying U.S. history, Chinese-born political science doctoral student Zeyu Chris Peng maps the impact of anti-immigrant attitudes on party politics.

Racial equity and data science

March 4, 2022 MIT IDSS

Professor Fotini Christia introduces a new MIT-wide effort to address systemic racism with social science and computation.

Leveraging schools for political influence

February 22, 2022 Leda Zimmerman MIT Department of Political Science

Doctoral student Blair Read links rise of private education in India to local political competition, signaling potential erosion of public services.

First-ever Climate Grand Challenges recognizes 27 finalists

February 14, 2022 MIT News Office

The Climate Grand Challenges competition launched in July 2020 with the goal of mobilizing the entire MIT research community around transformative projects that have the potential to make major advances in solving the big problems that stand in the way of effective global climate response.