Brian Hedden PhD '12 has been named co-associate dean of the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) at MIT, an overarching initiative inside the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, effective January 16.
Hedden is a professor within the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy and holds a joint position with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) on the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. He joined the MIT faculty last fall from the Australian National University and the University of Sydney, where he previously served as a college member. He earned his BA from Princeton University and his PhD from MIT, each in philosophy.
“Brian is a natural and compelling alternative for SERC as a philosopher whose work directly addresses the mental challenges facing education and research today, particularly within the areas of computer science and AI. His expertise in epistemology, decision theory, and ethics addresses questions which have turn into increasingly pressing in an age characterised by information abundance and artificial intelligence. His scholarship is an example of the sort of interdisciplinary research that SERC seeks to advance,” says Dan Huttenlocher, Dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and the Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Hedden's research focuses on how we must always form beliefs and make decisions, and examines how philosophical fascinated by rationality can provide insights into contemporary ethical issues, including the ethics of AI. He is the writer of Reasons without Persons: Rationality, Identity, and Time (Oxford University Press, 2015) and articles on topics equivalent to collective motion problems, legal standards of evidence, algorithmic fairness, and political polarization.
Along with co-associate dean Nikos Trichakis, the JC Penney Professor of Management on the MIT Sloan School of Management, Hedden will help lead SERC and advance the initiative's ongoing research, teaching and engagement efforts. He succeeds the philosophy professor Caspar Hasewho resigned at the top of his three-year term on September 1, 2025.
Since its inception in 2020, SERC has launched a series of programs and activities geared toward promoting responsible “habits of mind and motion” amongst those that develop and use computer technologies, while promoting the event of technologies in the general public interest.
The SERC Scholarship Program invites undergraduate and graduate students to work with postdoctoral researchers on interdisciplinary ethical challenges in the pc science field. The initiative also organizes one annual prize competition Challenging MIT students to assume the long run of computing, MIT publishes a series twice a yr Case studiesand works together in a coordinated manner Curriculum materialsincluding energetic learning projects, homework, and in-class demonstrations. In 2024, SERC introduced recent seed subsidy program to help MIT researchers in studying ethical technology development; so far, two rounds of the grants were awarded to 24 projects.
