Anne McCants is Professor of History and Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow at MIT where she directs the Concourse First Year Learning Community for the integration of the humanities in the science core. She serves as the President of the International Economic History Association and as an editor for both Social Science History and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Her books include Civic Charity in a Golden Age: Orphan Care in Early Modern Amsterdam, and several edited volumes on railroad construction in technological, economic and social context.  She has authored numerous articles on welfare in the Dutch Republic, European historical demography, and material culture and global consumption.  Her current work includes a study of medieval building technology in its social and economic context, an examination of the role of gender and family in long-run economic growth, and problems in modeling institutional and economic development.