Emily Hiestand
Writer and Photographer; Director of Communications, MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
PAST EMPLOYERS: Hiestand Design Associates; Orion Magazine; Education Development Center
As long as I can remember I have loved both words and images. I received a Brownie camera on my eighth birthday and have been photographing ever since. In art school I studied design, painting, and photography, and then practiced as an art director for many years before returning to school to study literature and environmental ethics. I love photography in part because it accepts elements of other media, and because the camera is a terrific traveler.
My writing has appeared in magazines (e.g.,The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, The Nation); in literary journals (including The Georgia Review, Southwest Review, and Agni); and has been anthologized in books (e.g., Nature Writing, W.W. Norton; Best American Poetry; This Impermanent Earth; and Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape). Awards include the Whiting Writers Award; National Magazine Award; National Poetry Series award; Discover/The Nation award; the Women in Design International award; and MIT’s Infinite Mile Award.
For the past fifteen years, I have served as the Communications Director for the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, a role that’s been a creative joy. At the core of the mission has been raising the visibility of MIT’s world-class humanistic fields (using the word “humanistic” broadly to include the humanities, arts, social sciences). Here are some ways that MIT leaders and publications now speak about the Institute’s research and education:
"Humanity faces urgent challenges—challenges whose solutions depend on marrying advanced technical and scientific capabilities with a deep understanding of the world's political, cultural, and economic complexities."
“100% of MIT undergraduates study the humanities, arts, and social sciences.”
“While the technical, scientific, and humanistic research domains have distinctive qualities and methodologies, they are also mutually informing modes of human knowledge.”
“The humanistic fields are vital to solving the world’s most urgent problems. They also help students shape successful careers.”
The cultural and historical perspectives, discernment, creativity, communication and critical thinking skills gained in the humanistic fields are ‘power skills,’ critical for success in any field.
MIT also encourages undergraduates “to delve into the humanistic fields to think about meaning and the best way to live; to discover core values, and to benefit from all the ways these fields contribute to well-being and a well-lived life.”
HIGHLIGHTS:
MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Communications Director | Website role: Strategist, Editorial director, Designer
Real Places
In praise of infrastructure, July 2001, The Atlantic
The Constant Gardner
A visit to the home of the famed Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, The Atlantic, March, 2007
“Watershed: An Excursion in Four Parts,”
published in This Impermanent Earth, University of Georgia Press, 2021