MIT Appoints Five Women to Lead Academic Programs in Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has recently appointed eight faculty members to serve as heads across various academic departments and programs. Five of the eight newly appointed leaders are women.

Christine Walley has been named head of the anthropology section. She began her career at MIT in 1999 as an assistant professor of anthropology. She currently holds the title of Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. She is the author of two books including Exit Zero: Family and Class in Post-Industrial Chicago (University of Chicago Press, 2013).

Dr. Walley is a graduate of Pomona College in California, where she majored in anthropology. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in anthropology from New York University.

Sandy Alexendre has been appointed co-head of the literature section. She is an associate professor whose research centers around late nineteenth-century to present-day Black American literature and culture. She is the author of The Properties of Violence: Claims to Ownership in Representations of Lynching (University Press of Mississippi, 2012).

Dr. Alexendre holds a Ph.D. in English language and literature from the University of Virginia.

Stephanie Frampton will serve alongside Dr. Alexendre as co-head of the literature section. In addition to teaching as an associate professor, she serves as co-chair of the program in ancient and medieval studies and faculty director of the programs in digital humanities. She is the author of Empire of Letters: Writing in Roman Literature and Thought from Lucretius to Ovid (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Dr. Frampton received her bachelor’s degree in classics and comparative literature from the University of Chicago and her Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard University.

Kate Brown has been named head of the program in science, technology, and society. She currently serves as the Thomas M. Siebel Distinguished Professor in the History of Science. She has written four award-winning books on the intersection of science, history, technology, and bio-politics including Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Dr. Brown holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Sana Aiyar has been appointed interim head of the program in women’s and gender studies. She is an associate professor of history whose research focuses on the transnational history of South Asia and South Asian diasporas. Her academic endeavors led her to authoring Indians in Kenya: The Politics of Diaspora (Harvard University Press, 2015).

Dr. Aiyar is received a bachelor’s degree from St. Stephen’s College of Delhi University in India. She earned a second bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Jesus College of the University of Cambridge, as well as a Ph.D. from Harvard University.