Cassandra Overney, a PhD student at the Center for Constructive Communication, has been named a 2026 MAD Design Fellow.

Overney builds AI-powered systems that strengthen the feedback loops between civic institutions and the communities they serve. Through multi-year co-design partnerships with the NYC Department of City Planning and school districts in North Carolina, she develops platforms that create mutual accountability. Her project Voice to Vision visualized how 3,000+ community inputs informed a neighborhood plan in Jamaica, Queens, and a companion platform for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools synthesized 13,000+ comments into 124 human-reviewed narratives during a redistricting process.

Each year, the MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MAD) supports MIT graduate students with a fellowship allowing them to pursue design research and projects while creating community. Pulling from different corners of design, they explore solutions in fields such as sustainability, health, mobility, urban planning, social justice, or education. The 2026 cohort of MAD Design Fellows was introduced at MAD in Dialogue on April 21, 2026 — an event highlighting design at MIT and beyond.