In the SSPS department, our ethos is egalitarian. Racism has no place in our department. Celebrating diversity and cultivating an environment of inclusiveness and compassion are the ideals that guide all our work regarding our students, staff, faculty, and the content of our programs; it is the culture of our department. In SSPS, we must commit to be anti-racist. That means standing up for what is right. It means seeking to confront our own biases and deliberately work to reduce them in our scholarship, our teaching, and our engagement with students, colleagues, and anyone we meet. It means hiring more people of color and giving their perspectives a platform, as we have our own, to permeate our courses, programs, and our teaching and learning. See SSPS’s full statement for more information.
All scientific and technological problems are embedded in broader sociocultural contexts.
You must understand society to effectively address our global grand challenges. Toward this end, the Social Science & Policy Studies (SSPS) department prepares students to understand human behavior and cognition, the environment, sustainable development, policy design and evaluation, and systems thinking. Through our teaching and student research opportunities, we cultivate professionals who have a deep understanding of the social impacts of science, technology, and innovation.
Our dedicated faculty offers students unique opportunities to make connections between societal concerns and technology through faculty-led research and student projects. To prepare themselves professionally, many of our students will double major in a technical field and a complementary SSPS-related degree. We also offer a variety of minors that can be uniquely paired with any major.
There Is No Place for Racism in SSPS
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Our Programs
Degrees & Certificates
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Student Projects in SSPS
Project-based learning is a pillar of the WPI Plan. Through hands-on projects in SSPS, students develop real-world solutions to societal challenges at the intersection of human behavior and psychology, the environment and sustainability, global development, public policy, and systems thinking.
News
Announcements
Media Coverage
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette interviewed researcher Erin Ottmar about the $700,000 grant she received from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop technology that will help middle school teachers better understand when and how students are succeeding or struggling while learning algebra.
The Washington Post spoke with Social Science & Policy Studies Department Head Rob Krueger about what the term “carbon neutral” means for hotels, and how people using a sustainable building can change the way it functions. Krueger also gave recommendations on how to travel in an environmentally-friendly way.
The Associated Press spoke with Assistant Professor of Social Science & Policy Studies Crystal Brown about how the Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens democracy, and how Vladimir Putin has used the appearance and infrastructure of democracy to gain, and keep, power.