New vice provost for the arts

Dear members of the MIT community,

It is with great pleasure that I share the news that Keeril Makan, the Michael (1949) and Sonja Koerner Music Composition Professor, will become MIT’s next vice provost for the arts, effective February 1.

As vice provost for the arts, Keeril will provide Institute-wide leadership and strategic direction for the arts, working in close partnership with academic leaders, arts units, and administrative colleagues across MIT, including the Office of the Arts; the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology; the MIT Museum; the List Visual Arts Center; and the Council for the Arts at MIT, among others. He will support artistic practice, public engagement, and interdisciplinary collaboration, and serve as a key advocate for the arts, both internally and externally.

Last September’s final report of the Future of the Arts at MIT Committee made clear that decades of strategic investment in the arts at MIT have yielded tremendous benefits for the entire Institute. I am thrilled that we have found in Keeril a leader to build on this vital legacy and pursue new ways for the arts to strengthen and enrich our community.

An artist and a leader

Keeril’s record of accomplishment both as an artist and an administrative leader makes him exceedingly qualified to take on this important role.

Keeril came to MIT in 2006 as an assistant professor of music. In the years since, he has repeatedly taken on new leadership assignments with skill and enthusiasm. From 2018 to 2024, he served as the head of the Music and Theater Arts Section, helping to conceive and realize the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building and, with colleagues from the School of Engineering, he launched a new master’s program in music and technology.

In 2023, Agustín Rayo, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, appointed Keeril as associate dean of strategic initiatives. In this role, Keeril has helped guide the school’s response to the fiscal pressures confronting MIT over the last year. Keeril also initiated an Institute-wide strategic review of the arts and served on the Future of the Arts at MIT Committee. He additionally chaired a working group on creating a center for the humanities at MIT, which ultimately became the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC), one of the Institute’s strategic initiatives.

Since last year, Keeril has served as MITHIC’s faculty lead, and I have had the privilege of getting to know and work with him closely in that capacity. I’ve been impressed with his vision and collaborative style. Under Keeril’s leadership, MITHIC has awarded $4.7 million in funding to 56 projects across 28 units – ensuring that human-centered thinking informs MIT’s approach to helping develop solutions to the world’s great challenges.

Keeril trained as a violinist before studying composition, earning his PhD in composition from the University of California, Berkeley. He has written dozens of compositions, winning acclaim from critics and fellow artists; The New Yorker has described his music as “empowered by modern technology but haunted by a spirit of immemorial darkness.”

Among his many awards, Keeril received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Luciano Berio Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. His music has been recorded by the Kronos Quartet, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, and performed at the Los Angeles Opera, Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and Tanglewood.

With gratitude

Keeril assumes the mantle of arts leadership from Philip Khoury, the Ford International Professor of History, who served in the role for nearly 20 years before stepping down last August. I am hugely grateful to Philip for his many years of outstanding leadership.

I’d also like to thank the members of the search advisory committee (listed below), chaired by Professor John Ochsendorf, for their thoughtful, comprehensive process. The committee sought and received advice from arts and academic leaders and reviewed nominations from across the Institute.

Please join me in congratulating Keeril on his new role.

Sincerely,

Anantha P. Chandrakasan
Provost

Vice Provost for the Arts Search Committee

John Ochsendorf, Professor, Department of Architecture and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (chair)

Vladimir Bulovic, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Jill Medvedow, Director Emerita, Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

Emily Richmond Pollock, Associate Professor, Music and Theater Arts

Katharina Ribbeck, Professor, Department of Biological Engineering

Daniela Rus, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Pawan Sinha, Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Gediminas Urbonas, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture

Bradley Vernatter, General Director and Chief Executive Officer, Boston Lyric Opera

Susan Whitehead, Life Member, MIT Corporation

Dan Delgado, Senior Director of Human Resources and Finance, Office of the Provost, Staff to the Committee