MIT’s mission is to develop in each member of the MIT community the ability to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.
This objective drives the PKG Center’s programming. In the words of our namesake, Priscilla King Gray, “The world needs people like MIT students.”
Our Origins
The PKG Center’s founders exemplify the ethos and expertise that has characterized the Center since. Dean of Student Affairs Shirley McBay, who first conceived of the Center, was a mathematician committed to supporting the success of all students in STEM and challenged preconceptions about who belonged in the field. McBay recruited MIT First Lady Priscilla King Gray and mechanical engineering Professor Robert Mann ‘50 in 1988 to found a Public Service Center. After working on missile technology in the 1950s, Mann shifted to the application of technology to social challenges, pioneering the development of biomedical prosthetics, and the discipline of design and project-based learning.
Priscilla King Gray, whose husband Paul Gray joined the electrical engineering faculty in 1960, became a familial mentor to countless students over the following fifty years as Paul went on to become dean of engineering and later the Institute’s 14th president from 1980-1990, followed by chairing the Corporation. Throughout her time at the Institute, Priscilla emanated a culture of caring that permeated campus life. In 2015, the Center was renamed in Priscilla’s honor. “Priscilla’s name is synonymous with public service at MIT,” observed president Sally Kornbluth upon her passing in 2023, “a fitting legacy for someone who believed deeply in our students and their capacity to do good in the world.”
Our Evolution
In 1990, the Center launched its Fellowship Program to support student projects in Cambridge K-12 schools. Over time, students came to propose more ambitious projects in a host of disciplines and locations, including internationally–on issues ranging from public health and humanitarian interventions, to climate, housing, and transportation–to further academic and professional goals.
In 2001, the director of the PKG Center and the founding director of D-Lab, who at the time was with the Edgerton Center, partnered to launch the IDEAS Social Innovation Challenge. In 2005, IDEAS moved from the Edgerton Center to PKG, where it became a training program for aspiring social entrepreneurs. Over 25 years, IDEAS has funded and incubated hundreds of social impact ventures in over 60 countries.
In 2019, the PKG Center launched its Social Impact Internship Program with an inaugural grant from the Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN), of which MIT was a founding member. Demand for this program has swelled to 7 applications for every internship the Center can fund, with some positions drawing upwards of 50 applications.
A subset of students participate in PKG’s Cohort-based internship programs, which complement work experience with intensive wraparound education, the first of which was launched in 2017, called IAP Health. This was followed by an internship program with Indigenous Innovators in 2023 with MIT SOLVE, and IAP Climate in 2024 with the MIT Office of Sustainability (MITOS).
Also in recent years, the Center began offering social impact Courses, and has advised a handful of faculty in community engaged learning.
In 2025, PKG launched a cross-Center initiative that draws on the resources of Fellowship, Social Impact Internship, and Cohort programming, called Code.Tulsa: Igniting Tech Futures. The initiative enables MIT students to both support and learn from the tech-based socioeconomic development strategies at work in the Tulsa region. Undergraduates intern over the summer for Native Nations and Tulsa nonprofits supporting various tech projects, and at the end of the summer lead a STEM Camp for Native youth developed by an MIT student. Code.Tulsa serves as a model for the type of thematic initiatives the Center will pursue in the future, initiatives designed to support student engagement in MIT’s social impact priorities, be it access to STEM education or the social application of AI.
