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News@E40

February 2, 2016

MISTI Global Seed Funds

In the 2015-2016 grant cycle, 86 projects were awarded funding by MISTI Global Seed Funds. This cycle's winning faculty and research scientists represent four MIT schools and 22 departments across the Institute. MISTI GSF consists of a general pool of funds for projects in any country and several country-specific funds. MISTI supported collaborations in 24 unique countries through 21 individual MISTI seed funds. The next call for proposals will be announced in May 2016 with a proposal deadline in early fall. Read more

News@E40

January 11, 2016

Summer study grants

Doctoral students in international affairs may apply for summer support for dissertation research. Research on a broad range of international issues will be considered. Support may be requested either for fieldwork and/or archival research, or for home-based research and writeup. Grants will not exceed $3,500. The deadline for applications is Monday, March 14. More information about the CIS Summer Study Grant is available here.

Mayumi Fukushima

News@E40

November 4, 2015

Useful Guide to Using Japanese Government Archives

Mayumi Fukushima, a PhD student in the MIT Department of Political Science's Security Studies Program, has published a very useful guide to using Japanese government archives on the widely used H-Diplo. "As a former Japanese Foreign Service officer, I did not imagine how hard it would be for outside researchers to identify and find archival documents relevant to their research questions. It was not until I searched the Japanese diplomatic archives myself as an academic that I learned the challenges foreign researchers faced in accessing governmental documents," says Fukushima. Full Publication

Generation Global

News@E40

October 20, 2015

MIT Generation Global 2015

MIT Generation Global is a fellowship program for MIT students who are passionate about solving global problems and want to share that passion with local high school students. This year's participating high school was Prospect Hill Academy (PHA) in Central Square, Cambridge. MIT Generation Global brought together a team of two MIT students, a PHA faculty member, and a K-12 curriculum expert to design and facilitate a two-week, problem-based program for a group of PHA high school students. The program culminated July 10 in a public event where the high school students presented their solutions to healthcare scarcity to a panel of experts. Watch video

Henry Luce Foundation

News@E40

October 1, 2015

Luce Fellowship deadline Oct. 22

Thursday, October 22, is the deadline for the Luce Scholars Program. Young scholars from a wide variety of intellectual fields will be placed in 10-month internships in selected countries in Asia. The fellowship is aimed for those with no prior experience in the region. Nominees must be American citizens not yet 30 years old on July 1, 2016, and who have earned at least a bachelor's degree or expect to receive one by July 1, 2016. More information

News@E40

September 16, 2015

Secrecy, surveillance, privacy, and IR

The Center convened a meeting on "Secrecy, Surveillance, Privacy, and International Relations," in April 2015. The two-day seminar included talks from multiple experts working in such fields as academia, journalism, and law. Topics included: secrecy norms, technology, case studies, and relevance to international relations. The conference memos are available here.

News@E40

August 27, 2015

General Dunford visits CIS

General Joseph Dunford, Jr. visited the MIT Center for International Studies on August 27, 2015. General Dunford met with Richard Samuels, Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of CIS, Paul Heer, CIS Robert E Wilhelm Fellow and former National Intelligence Officer for East Asia, and Taylor Fravel, associate professor of political science at MIT, to discuss East Asian security.

News@E40

June 2, 2015

Armenian genocide and Armenia today

On May 13, 2015, the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Hrant Dink Memorial Human Rights and Justice Lectureship at MIT, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace held a conference on the Armenian genocide at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. The aim of the conference was to inform public debate on the evolution of the Armenian genocide. Conference panelists represented a diversity of expertise and experience, but all shared in their scholarly approach to examining the events of 1915 and the critical issues affecting Armenia today. Read full report

Richard Samuels

News@E40

March 25, 2015

Einstein Foundation interviews Samuels

Richard Samuels, Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of CIS, is also an Einstein Visiting Fellow, Graduate School of East Asian Studies, at the Einstein Foundation in Berlin. The Einstein Foundation featured a Q&A with Samuels that is available here: Read more

David Dolev

News@E40

March 4, 2015

Dolev receives MIT excellence award

David Dolev, assistant director of the MISTI and managing director of the MIT-Israel PRogram, was honored with the Excellence Award for Advancing Inclusion and Global Perspectives in recognition of the programs he has developed that promote greater understanding across the MIT community and beyond. His inventive program MISTI 2.0 is designed to develop MIT students into dynamic leaders with a global perspective. In the MIT-Israel Program, he has created opportunities for hundreds of MIT students to work and do research in Israel, a pioneer in fields like energy and the environment. In the MIT-MEET Program, Dolev helps recruit and prepare MIT students to promote interaction and camaraderie between Israeli and Palestinian high-school students as they bond around a passion for new technologies. Read more

Ranil Wickremesinghe

News@E40

January 9, 2015

Wickremesinghe elected PM of Sri Lanka

The Center is thrilled to announce that Ranil Wickremesinghe was recently elected prime minister of Sri Lanka. Wickremesinghe was a CIS Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow in the spring of 2014. While at MIT, he focused on how to formulate a constitution sans an executive presidency. He also worked with faculty and students interested in Asian regional issues. In addition, he was the key speaker at Starr Forum: The Indian Ocean: The Vortex of Destiny. Wickremesinghe was prime minister of Sri Lanka twice before, from May 7, 1993 to August 19, 1994, and from December 9, 2001 to April 6, 2004.

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

MISTI Associate Director April Julich Perez (center) accepts the award on behalf of MISTI, with NAFSA President Fanta Aw (left) and Martin Simon, son of the late Senator Paul Simon.  Photo: NAFSA: Association of International Educators

News@E40

December 4, 2013

MISTI receives NAFSA award

MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) was recently presented with the 2013 Senator Paul Simon Spotlight Award during International Education Week in Washington, D.C. The award is granted by NAFSA: Association of International Educators to innovative university programs that make a significant contribution to campus internationalization. "MISTI has spawned entrepreneurs, academics, and venture capitalists who work on the global stage with language skills on top of advanced technological prowess." Read more

National Science Foundation (NSF)

News@E40

June 11, 2013

CIS and Wilson Center receive NSF grant

CIS and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars are collaborating on a $233,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help realize potential benefits and to address potential ecological effects of synthetic biology. The project will be conducted jointly by the Center's Program on Emerging Technologies, directed by MIT professor Kenneth Oye, and the Synthetic Biology Project at the Wilson Center. It will build on four previous workshops that brought together a wide range of scientists, regulators, NGOs, companies, and other stakeholders to discuss possible ecological risks associated with synthetic biology products and to identify sources of uncertainty over risks. Read more

MIT dome

News@E40

May 16, 2013

Rebecca Ochoa receives SHASS award

Rebecca Ochoa, from CIS Headquarters, received an Infinite Mile Award from the School of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences (SHASS). The School's Rewards and Recognition Program recognizes individuals (and teams) who make contributions to the organizations within SHASS, as well as exceptional contributions that benefit the entire School and the Institute. Award recipients represent the best of SHASS employees. Rebecca received the award in the category "Unsung Hero" for her strong work ethic and leadership skills along with her outstanding work in event planning, videography, and training.

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