The Media Lab is an interdisciplinary creative playground rooted squarely in academic rigor, comprising dozens of research groups, initiatives, and centers working collaboratively on hundreds of projects. We focus not only on creating and commercializing transformational future technologies but also on their potential to impact society for good.

Mission

To create transformative technologies, experiences, and systems that enable people to reimagine and redesign their lives.
We engage people everywhere in meaningful, creative experiences integrating art, science, design, and engineering. Experimenting in the spaces where humanity and technology interface, we work with organizations and communities around the world to transform people’s dreams and ideas into reality through excellence in education, research, innovation, and inspiring creativity.

Vision

To invent a better and more just future—by, with, and for all.
Our diverse community of students, researchers, faculty, and staff seeks to continually transform ideas into impactful new applications, fields, and movements by exploring imaginatively, experimenting iteratively, collaborating playfully, and analyzing critically. We will create opportunities for others around the world to engage in their creative explorations to envision better lives, communities, and environments.

Shared Values

The beliefs and aspirations we bring to the Media Lab—and expect in our community—every day.

Working with excellence, integrity, and humility
In our work and our interactions with others, we bring honesty, transparency, respect, and self-accountability.

Celebrating individuality and community 
We belong to a magical, quirky community, welcoming to and caring for all forms and intersections of diversity, including cultural backgrounds and personal identifications, thought, cross-generational experience, and field of research. 

Fostering and developing creativity
We imagine, build, and inspire whole new ways to use imagination and original ideas in our work and research, the ways we think and act, the people and communities we impact, and risk-taking and pushing perceived boundaries in research and innovation. 

Collaborating openly and actively
We seek to build new research and working relationships with non-traditional collaborators within the Media Lab, across MIT,  and globally from academia, industry, governments, and NGOs, foundations, and other non-profit organizations.

Media Lab Data Visualization Map

How our research groups, centers, and initiatives connect with each other and with MIT.

Our dynamic map is currently undergoing maintenance. Check back soon for an update!

Media Lab Collective Research Themes

Click on the boxes below to learn more about our strategic Research Themes:

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The MIT Media Lab faculty, staff, and students recognize that diversity, equity, and inclusion are more than just words; they demand action—action that values and welcomes each community member and their unique experiences and perspectives, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability, and religion, among other attributes.

Membership at the Media Lab

The Lab's primary source of funding comes from more than our corporate members, whose businesses range from electronics to entertainment, furniture to finance, and toys to telecommunications. Membership, available in several different options, provides a unique opportunity for corporations to have access to a valuable resource for conducting research that is too costly or too "far out" to be accommodated within a corporate environment. It is also an opportunity for corporations to bring their business challenges and concerns to the Lab to see the solutions our researchers present.