Ellan Spero

Co-Founder and Chief Curriculum Officer, Station 1, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

I study the ways that people envision human progress, through the institutions, built environments, and narratives that they create. As a historian of technology, business, and higher education, my work is about drawing connections between the ways that people learn, produce, and maintain systems of knowledge and material culture. I am passionate about the amazing potential of connecting people across disciplines and physical geographies – this resonates throughout the work I do at Station1, the opportunities that I aim to facilitate for our students, the way I approach the serendipity of my own research and place in the world. I am interested in the ways that people create and maintain collaboration across professional sectors, a theme of my own research in the history of nascent academic-industrial partnerships at the beginning of the 20th century. I was recently a visiting scientist at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) at the Smart Living Lab in Fribourg, Switzerland, a research and development center for the built environment of the future. As a joint post-doctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) I created coursework that engaged students in analysis of technology, culture, and the city. I hold a Ph.D. from MIT in History, Anthropology, Science, Technology and Society, a B.S. and M.S. from Cornell University in Fiber Science and Apparel Design, and M.A from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in Museum Studies and Textile Conservation.

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Interest Group Membership

Emerging Scholars

Research Interests

Industrial Research

Material Culture

Higher Education

Fashion and Textiles

Service to the BHC

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