A new lens on humanity

When the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) launched in fall 2024, it was designed to elevate scholars at the frontiers of human-centered research and education, and to provide them with resources to pursue their most innovative and ambitious ideas. 

At the inaugural MITHIC Annual Event on Nov. 17, 2025, faculty from across the Institute shared the progress and impact of the projects they’ve advanced this past year with support from the presidential initiative. 

In opening remarks, MIT President Sally Kornbluth noted the “incredible range of opportunities for faculty and students to ask new questions and arrive at better, bolder, and more nuanced answers, grounded in the wisdom of the humanities, arts, and social sciences,” that MITHIC has sparked in its first year. 

Kornbluth highlighted the Living Climate Futures Lab as an example of the kind of work MITHIC was designed to support. “The lab works with people in communities from Massachusetts to Mongolia who are grappling with the impacts of climate change on their daily lives — on health and food security, housing, and jobs,” she said. The initiative, which was the focus of a panel discussion during the event, received MITHIC’s inaugural Faculty-Driven Initiative (FDI) seed grant.

“Like all the projects that MITHIC supports, the Living Climate Futures Lab also embodies MIT’s singular brand of excellence: collaborative, hands-on, and is deeply relevant to the world and the people around us,” added Kornbluth. 

MIT Provost Anantha Chandrakasan welcomed the audience, noting that “MITHIC is off to a strong start, advancing work across the Institute that broadens our perspective on global challenges.

“MITHIC is about inspiring our community to think differently and work together in new ways. It is about embedding human-centered thinking throughout our research, innovation, and education,” added Chandrakasan, who serves as co-chair of MITHIC.

Keynote speaker Rick Locke, the John C. Head III Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, spoke to the “Human Side of Enterprise,” zeroing in on the challenges and opportunities that will determine the future of management education — and how MIT Sloan can position itself at the forefront. In practice, that means the work of MIT Sloan and MITHIC can shape how new technologies like artificial intelligence will reconfigure industries and careers. 

Of equal importance, Locke said, will be how new enterprises are created and run, how people work and live, how business practices become more sustainable, and how national economies develop and adapt.

“MIT has a history of charting and paving pathways to an exciting and productive future of work that not only includes humans, but makes the most of our humanity. Together we can invent this future,” said Locke, who earned his doctorate in MIT’s Department of Political Science and later served as head of the department.

After his address, Locke joined Agustín Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and co-chair of MITHIC, for a fireside chat.

Bringing the classics back to life

In a session exploring innovations in MIT education, Kieran Setiya, the Peter de Florez Professor of Philosophy, detailed what he and his colleagues are calling a “Great Books” initiative. 

As part of a three-year pilot, faculty in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy have developed a two-semester sequence that focuses on books that reward repeated reading. The courses are loosely integrated and offered as electives, filling what Setiya calls an “urgent need for students to grapple with expansive questions about human nature, human knowledge, ethics, society, and politics” at a time of rapid social and technological change.

As students explore the work of authors like Plato and Aristotle, Homer and Virgil, Virginia Woolf, W.E.B. DuBois, and Simone de Beauvoir, they develop a deeper understanding of history, culture, and social change. These attributes, Setiya says, “will make students better people and better citizens. We’re not just preparing MIT students to land high-paying jobs, but to solve human problems and to make the world a better place.”

AI and its impact

During a session on the use of AI, Esther Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics, shared research she is working on in India with co-project lead Marzyeh Ghassemi, associate professor and the Germeshausen Career Development Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). 

Duflo explained that the team is using AI to identify undiagnosed “silent” heart attacks, aiming to improve diagnosis and treatment of heart disease, the country’s No. 1 cause of death. The research team harnessed the power of a cheap diagnostic tool — a handheld electrocardiogram (ECG) device — to collect data on 6,000 patients who visited local health camps to predict their risk of a heart attack. 

They then paired the initial data with follow-up data from a cardiac ultrasound, which was able to confirm if patients experienced one. The researchers used this paired data and their own novel algorithm to train the ECG devices to more accurately assess a patient’s risk. The results are encouraging: 

“What is remarkable compared to existing tests is that it catches young people who are less likely to have had a silent heart attack, but still have a high risk. Right now, those young people are completely excluded from the current screening, because it’s basically based only on age,” Duflo said.

Reconstructing the music of the past

The day also featured a musical demonstration using three different replicas of an ancient Paracas whistle that a team from MIT recreated in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA).

It was a practical example of how Mark Rau, an assistant professor in music and theater arts with a shared appointment in EECS, and Benjamin Sabatini, a senior postdoc in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, are using CT scan technology to create models of ancient instruments, measure their vibrations and acoustic parameters, and produce functional reproductions. 

The team offered a step-by-step overview of the process they’ve used to assess the instruments and create the 3D-printed plaster molds, working alongside Jared Katz, the Pappalardo Curator of Musical Instruments at the MFA, resulting in a playable replica of an instrument used centuries ago. 

“What we’re really excited about is getting these kinds of replicas in the hands of students and musicians, and having experimental engagements. We’re also really excited about the printed replicas that allow the collection to be activated in new ways,” Katz explained.

The event featured Q&A opportunities throughout the day, as well as a reception at the close of the day. MITHIC’s second call for proposals this fall yielded nearly 80 submissions, which are under review for funding in 2026. 

A new call for proposals for the SHASS+ Connectivity Fund will be held in spring 2026. SHASS+ supports projects led by a SHASS scholar and a collaborator from another part of the Institute. Another call for proposals for the next FDI seed grant will also take place in spring 2026.