Kenneth Keniston is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Human Development and Director of Projects in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, he was educated in part at the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires (Central). He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, with a thesis on the Political philosophy of Jose Ortega y Gasset. He received his D.Phil. in Social Studies from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College. He has taught at Harvard University, where he was a Junior Fellow; in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Yale University; and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been Director (1986-1992) and Director of Graduate Studies (1992-1996) of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society.

He was a member, Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (1964-1971) director, Behavioural Sciences Study Center, Yale Medical School (1967-1971); chairman and director, Carnegie Council on children (1971-1977), author of its report, All Our Children; member, Board of Overseers of Harvard University (1973-1979); Guggenheim Foundation for Latin American applicants (1988-); member, Committee of Selection for the MacArthu Prize Fellowships (1973-1979); member, Committee of Selection for the Guggenheim Fellowships (1991-1994). He has been a visiting Scholar of the (Ecole des Mines (Paris); Visiting Professor at the University of Paris V (Sorbonne); Visiting la, Professor at the Centro de Estodios Avanzados de Ciencias Sociales (Madrid). He has been a Consultant on a number of projects in Venezuela, Kuwait, Mendoza (Argentina), Malaysia, Politecnico of Torina Italy, Petroleum Institute in Dhahrun, Saudi Arabia. He is currently a member of the National Research Council/Max Planck Institute (American-German) working group on Global Networks and Local Values. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Originally trained as a social psychologist, Professor Keniston is interested in the relationship of technology, personality and culture. He has studied the recruitment, education and careers of engineers in the united States and France. He has worked on the financing and organization of scientific and engineering research in universities in the United States. His current focuses on the relationship of computers and culture, especially in South Asia.

Professor Keniston is the author of seven books and more than one hundred articles and chapters. His most recent works are, with D. Guston, The Fragile Contract (1994), and with J. Ker Conway and L. Marx, Earth, Air, Fire, Water; Humanistic Studies of the Environment (in press)

He is the Director of the MIT India Project at MIT, a part of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiative (MISTI).

He has been appointed Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee Visiting professor at t National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, for the fall semester of 1999.