MIT News Newsletter

	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
June 21, 2018
MIT News: around campus
A weekly digest of the Institute’s community news

MIT Professor Emerita Joan Jonas receives the 2018 Kyoto Prize

Artist and scholar cited for her “immeasurable impact” in pioneering the integration of performance art and new media.

Daniel Hastings named head of Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

A member of the MIT faculty since 1985, Hastings will succeed Jaime Peraire as AeroAstro department head.

In profile: Jamshied Sharifi ’83, Tony Award winner

Composer, musician, and former MIT visiting artist received a 2018 Tony Award for best orchestrations on “The Band's Visit.”

Tackling the ultimate problem set: The first year at MIT

How would you change the first-year experience? Students have proposed inventive ways to improve the first year. And MIT is listening.

MIT finishes second in 2018 Learfield Cup Final Standings

Engineers record highest finish in program history after record-setting 2017-18 athletics season.

In the Media

BBC reporter Dave Edmonds speaks to Prof. Esther Duflo, co-founder of J-PAL, about her use of field studies and randomized control trials to test the effectiveness of programs in developing countries. Duflo explains that by examining data from randomized control trials, “out of the noise emerges some kind of melody of the logic of behavior.”

In an article for Bloomberg News, Prof. Daron Acemoglu writes about how countries that democratize tend to see faster rates of economic growth. Acemoglu notes that what tends to spur economic growth is how, “democracies increase taxes and spend more on education and health, preparing the economy to achieve greater productivity in the decades to come.”

The Boston Globe reports that Prof. Emerita Joan Jonas has been awarded the 2018 Kyoto Prize. The prize honors “important figures in the fields of advanced technology, basic sciences, and arts and philosophy.”