Ellan Spero
Instructor, Technology and Policy Program
Ellan F. Spero is a historian of science and technology, educator and instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a primary appointment in the Technology and Policy Program, and collaborating in teaching and research in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. She is an academic entrepreneur, serving as co-founder and professor of the practice at Station1, a nonprofit higher education institution focused on a new inclusive and cross-disciplinary model of socially-directed science and technology education, research, and innovation. Dr. Spero’s research focuses on the ways that people envision human progress through the systems, institutions, objectives, and narratives that they create. As a historian working at the intersection of technology, business, and higher education, Dr. Spero’s research explores narratives of progress, systems of production, academic-industrial ecosystems, and interactions between humans and material infrastructures.
Dr. Spero is on the leadership team of a cross-disciplinary multi-institutional research grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator (Track I, Phase I) on the topic of “Socioresilient Materials Design (SMD): A New Paradigm for Addressing Global Challenges in Sustainability.” This research program is an innovative cross-sector and cross-disciplinary effort that aims to fundamentally rethink, re-shape, re-direct, and accelerate materials research and development towards more environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable and resilient materials-based products and materials-driven outcomes. This research program will reframe the classical materials design paradigm through the incorporation of social metrics, develop state-of-the-art materials computational methods and software, and utilize and incorporate nature-inspired principles to meaningfully shift our current trajectory of planetary crises in pollution, waste, biodiversity, and climate change.
Dr. Spero has led the development of cross-disciplinary curriculum on socially-directed science and technology and is a co-lead on three grant-funded pedagogical initiatives which focus on social responsibility, inclusive innovation, and thoughtful development of science and technology. At MIT, she has co-developed and co-teaches “Materials, Societal Impact, and Social Innovation (MSS 3.087)” and “Social Life of Materials: Past-Present-Future (SLM 3.S04)” and serves as the facilitator for the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Collaborative.
Dr. Spero serves on the Board of Directors of the Lawrence History Center (Massachusetts, United States), The Watch Library Foundation (Switzerland), and Station1 (Massachusetts, United States). She serves as the chair of the Prometheans working group on history of engineering and on the Nominations Committee within SHOT, and co-chair of the engineering studies working group in the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM). Dr. Spero participates in international research communities across disciplines and has presented at the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), the International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), the Business History Conference (BHC), Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), the European Economic History Association, the Social Science History Association (SSHA), the World Congress of Economic History, the Materials Research Society (MRS), and specialty conferences and workshops on World’s Expos, academic-entrepreneurship, the Anthropocene, and maintenance and innovation. She has received research fellowships from the Linda Hall Library, the Chemical Heritage Foundation (Science History Institute), and Hagley Museum and Library.
Spero has held visiting appointments at the Ca’ Foscari University (Venice, Italy), University of Padova (Italy), École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland), and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD, Singapore). Dr. Spero holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in History, Anthropology, Science, Technology and Society (HASTS). Spero also holds a B.S. and M.S. from Cornell University in Fiber Science and Apparel Design, and a M.A from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in Museum Studies and Textile Conservation.
