News@E40 | 2014

 
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf

News@E40

November 6, 2014

MIT alumnus elected Governor of Pennsylvania

Tom Wolf, an alumnus of the MIT Department of Political Science, has been elected governor of Pennsylvania. He came to MIT in 1974 after studying Indian history in London and serving three years in the Peace Corps in Orissa. At MIT, he was a student of Walter Dean Burnham in American political history and Myron Weiner in political demography. His doctoral dissertation won the E.E. Schattschneider Prize of the American Political Science Association for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of American politics. Notwithstanding his very promising prospects as an academic, governor-elect Wolf chose to return to his hometown and expand the family business. From that base, he became one of southeastern Pennsylvania's most philanthropic business leaders. He has served on the department's visiting committee and is a charter member of the CIS advisory board. CIS director, Richard Samuels, was his classmate in the political science PhD program, and celebrated governor elect Wolf's victory with their friends and families in York, Pennsylvania. Samuels remarked, "The citizens of Pennsylvania have made a splendid choice. They are fortunate to have so bright and dedicated a leader."

JoAnn Carmin

News@E40

July 17, 2014

In memoriam: JoAnn Carmin

Associate Professor JoAnn Carmin passed away on July 15, 2014. Carmin had been on the faculty of MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning since 2003 and was the founding director of the Center's Program on Environmental Governance and Sustainability. "JoAnn was a great colleague, smart, savvy, and deeply committed to doing good in the world. She came to us with an idea for a new program, which she headed and made into a success—the Program on Environmental Governance and Sustainability. It was focused on student research, and I'm sure she made a huge difference in many students' lives," said John Tirman, executive director and principal research scientist at CIS.

News@E40

May 15, 2014

CIS awards 16 summer study grants

The Center is pleased to announce the recipients of its summer study grants. The grants have been awarded to 16 doctoral students in international affairs at MIT. Each will receive up to $3,000 for summer studies, which may be used for fieldwork, archival research, or home-based research and write-up. 

April Julich Perez

News@E40

April 2, 2014

MISTI's Perez honored for leadership

April Julich Perez, associate director of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) has been honored for her leadership with a 2014 MIT Excellence Award for Bringing Out the Best. "In her role at MISTI, April has distinguished herself in her ability to mentor, inspire, and empower each member of her staff—encouraging them to take on new responsibilities and supporting them every step of the way," said Institute Community and Equity Officer Edmund Bertschinger, who presented Perez with the award at a ceremony held February 25. Read more

US-Iran Misperceptions: A Dialogue

News@E40

February 26, 2014

US-Iran project book explores 'Misperceptions'

The long-running US-Iran Project, which has brought together policy makers from both countries to explore fraught periods in the relationship, has produced a second book, U.S.-Iran Misperceptions: A Dialogue, published in February by Bloomsbury Press. John Tirman, CIS executive director, is coeditor and coauthor with Abbas Maleki, a former Robert Wilhelm Fellow at the Center and associate professor of energy policy at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. Other contributors include Robert Jervis, Hossein Mousavian, Hussein Banai, Robert Reardon, Kayhan Barzegar, Steven Miller and Matthew Bunn. It is unique format in which Iranians and Americans write about each others role in the Gulf, on nuclear matters, and other issues.

Francis Gavin

News@E40

February 20, 2014

Gavin begins work as Stanton chair

This year marks a major extension of MIT's engagement with nuclear studies with the appointment of Francis Gavin as the first Frank Stanton Chair in Nuclear Policy Studies, on the strength of a $5 million endowment from the Stanton Foundation. The Department of Political Science and its interdisciplinary Security Studies Program have been deeply engaged with these topics since the 1970s. "We're in a renaissance of nuclear studies now, and MIT is at the center of it—a majority of the scholars whose work I most admire have come from this program," says Gavin, who joins the Institute after 14 years at the University of Texas at Austin. Read more