Dear STS Community, MIT’s Program in STS is pleased to announce it has awarded the 2025-2026 L. Dennis Shapiro (1955) Graduate Fellowship in the History of African American Experience of Technology<https://sts-program.mit.edu/news/news-shapiro-graduate-fellowship/> to C Jacob Payne<http://www.cjacobpayne.com/>, a rising third year Master of Architecture candidate at MIT.
Jacob's proposed research, Building Without Permission, will examine how African American communities in the rural South developed independent systems of building during the Jim Crow era, when they were excluded from licensure and formal architectural education. By focusing on “vernacular structures” like praise houses and juke joints, Payne will study how Black builders used local materials and intergenerational knowledge to create a unique architectural culture that was often not documented. His work combines archival research, field documentation, model making, and speculative drawing to address gaps in the historical record and recover histories of building that have been erased. Payne regards such methods as ways to record lost histories of African American building, as well as the cultural memories and architectural practices of communities that built under conditions of constraint and exclusion. This fellowship, established in 2021, supports MIT graduate students studying the history of African Americans’ experience with technology, or that of other under-represented groups. Donor L. Dennis Shapiro<https://spectrum.ieee.org/a-tribute-to-l-dennis-shapiro-who-helped-develop-the-life-alert-personal-emergencyresponse-system> (1955) was an electronics engineer and inventor with a life-long interest in American History. Best wishes, -- Eden Medina Head, Program in Science, Technology, and Society Professor of Science, Technology, and Society Massachusetts Institute of Technology e...@mit.edu<mailto:e...@mit.edu> Recent Scholarship: How to Design a Revolution: The Chilean Road to Design<https://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/how-design-revolution?srsltid=AfmBOop9hqTkBtVVBuRJNnScal8Hre1JmMbZnGN8Syi64YC2XdVKIQ5m> (Lars Müller Publishers) “Knowledge and Ignorance in Forensic Identification: The Origins of a Contested Human Rights Fact<https://edenmedina.mit.edu/news/new-article-knowledge-and-ignorance-in-forensic-identification-the-origins-of-a-contested-human-rights-fact/>,” Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society
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