Research
Space Enabled

Advancing justice in Earth's complex systems using designs enabled by space
Project Research

Dreaming through Code

Dreaming through Code Designing creative learning workshops for local organizations committed to introducing technology to kids in a n…
Archived
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Scalable Cooperation

Reimagining human cooperation in the age of social media and artificial intelligence
Archived
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Collective Learning

Transforming data into knowledge
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Social Machines

Promoting deeper learning and understanding in human networks
Center for Civic Media
Archived
Archived
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Civic Media

Creating technology for social change
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Object-Based Media

Changing storytelling, communication, and everyday life through sensing, understanding, and new interface technologies
Article Research

Making art through computation

Master’s student Chelsi Cocking combines her love for computer science and design in her research and outreach efforts at the Media Lab.
Post Research

Neil Gaikwad recognized by MIT and University of Chicago

Named Human Rights & Technology Fellow by MIT Center for International Studies, and a Rising Star by UChicago Center for Data & Computing.
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Project Research

LinkedOut: Codesigning societal reentry with returning citizens

LinkedOut aims to define and build solutions to facilitate societal reentry for formerly incarcerated individuals.In collaboration with t...
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Archived
Project Research

Actionable Auditing: Coordinated bias disclosure study

Algorithmic auditing has emerged as a key strategy to expose systematic biases embedded in software platforms, yet scholarship on the imp...
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Make the Breast Pump Not Suck Hackathon

In September 2014, 150 parents, engineers, designers, and healthcare practitioners gathered at the MIT Media Lab for the "Make the Breast...
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Gender Shades

The Gender Shades project pilots an intersectional approach to inclusive product testing for AI.Algorithmic Bias PersistsGender Shades is...
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Archived
Project Research

Gobo

Your social media. Your rules.Gobo is an experiment, not a startup. We’re building it to change the conversation on social media and imag...
Archived
Research
City Science

Looking beyond smart cities
Project Research

Two Mobility Futures 0∞

Two Mobility Futures 0∞ is a research project that encompasses storytelling, a democratic decision making platform, a city model, and an ...
Research
Poetic Justice

Exploring new forms of social justice through art
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Camera Culture

Making the invisible visible–inside our bodies, around us, and beyond–for health, work, and connection
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Viral Communications

Creating scalable technologies that evolve with user inventiveness
Project Research

Understanding the 15 Minute City

City Science researchers are engaging in an exploratory process to understand, develop, and model a platform with a focus on the 15-minut...
Project Research

A Co-Design Experience: Technologies for Rural Sustainability in Colombia | 2022 Edition

​🚨Applications to the 2022 Co-Design Experience are now closed🚨OverviewThe development of technology in rural environments in Colombia is...
Project Research

OpenCBDC

ResearchTechnical Paper | Executive Summary | GithubAboutIntroductionOpenCBDC is an open source project to engage in ...
Project Research

Private Location Data for the Public Good and Urban Understanding

There is a continuous and ubiquitous collection of precise, timestamped, geolocation data from apps and devices, being amassed by private...
Project Research

RealTalk for Change Boston

A revolutionary new piece of civic infrastructure for more inclusive public input.Real Talk for Change is a collaboration between MIT’s C...
Article Research

Some Bostonians feel largely unheard. With MIT’s ‘Real Talk’ portal now public, here’s a chance to really listen

A database of community conversations in various Boston neighborhoods launches publicly on Monday.
Article Research

MIT’s ‘Real Talk’ campaign gives likely voters a voice in Boston’s race for mayor

Researchers enlist grassroots activists to engage “invisible” residents about the future of the city.
Research
MIT Center for Constructive Communication

MIT Center for Constructive Communication
Publication Research

Privacy Limitations Of Interest-based Advertising On The Web: A Post-mortem Empirical Analysis Of Google’s FLoC

Berke, Alex, and Dan Calacci. "Privacy Limitations Of Interest-based Advertising On The Web: A Post-mortem Empirical Analysis Of Google's FLoC." arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.13402 (2022).
Article Research

MIT experts test technical research for a hypothetical central bank digital currency

Collaboration with Federal Reserve Bank of Boston yields progress in understanding how a digital currency might be developed in the future.
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Biomechatronics

Enhancing human physical capability
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Opera of the Future

Extending expression, learning, and health through innovations in musical composition, performance, and participation
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Sculpting Evolution

Cultivating wisdom through evolutionary and ecological engineering
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Personal Robots

Building intelligent personified technologies that collaborate with people to help them learn, thrive, and flourish.
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Future Sketches

Exploring the essence of code as a creative medium
Project Research

Regional Technology Co-Creation and Transfer Ecosystems in Latin America

🚨Application to the 2022 Co-Design Experience here bit.ly/codesign2022 🚨Historically, the term technology transfer has been ass...
Article Research

Better democracy through technology

Can machines make us better citizens and conversationalists? Deb Roy thinks so.
Article Research

Systems scientists find clues to why false news snowballs on social media

A new model shows that the more polarized and hyperconnected a social network is, the more likely misinformation will spread.
Post Research

Pedro Reynolds-Cuéllar and collaborators receive Honorable Mention for paper at CSCW 2021

“Growing together, remaining apart: The role of digital technology in former guerrilla fighters’ social capital."
Publication Research

Growing Together, Remaining Apart: The Role of Digital Technology in Former Guerrilla Fighters' Social Capital

Debora de Castro Leal, Max Krüger, Pedro Reynolds-Cuéllar, Amparo Caicedo, Carlos Gómez, Dave Randall, and Volker Wulf. 2021. Growing Together, Remaining Apart: The Role of Digital Technology in Former Guerrilla Fighters' Social Capital. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 5, CSCW2, Article 331 (October 2021), 24 pages. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3476072
Project Research

The Power of Without

The Power of WITHOUT is a research theme in the City Science group. The theme proposes that heavy infrastructure solutions are not financ...
Project Research

Participatory Sensemaking

How might we collect rich and complex data from community dialogues, analyze and make sense of that data? How might we design output...
Research
Digital Currency Initiative (DCI)

Digital Currency Initiative
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Research
PlusMinus

PlusMinus
Project Research

City Science Lab @ Hamburg

MIT City Science is working with HafenCity University to develop CityScope for the neighborhood of Rothenburgsort in Hamburg, Germany. Th...
Publication Research

Mobility patterns are associated with experienced income segregation in large US cities

Moro, E., Calacci, D., Dong, X. et al. Mobility patterns are associated with experienced income segregation in large US cities. Nat Commun 12, 4633 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24899-8
Project Research

The Atlas of Inequality

Segregation is hurting our societies and especially our cities. But economic inequality isn't just limited to neighborhoods. The restaura...
Project Research

CivilServant: User-led randomized trials online

The CivilServant project supports online communities to run their own experiments on the effects of moderation practices on antisocial be...
Archived
Publication Research

Defund Big Tech, Refund Community: Anti-Trust is Not Enough, Another Tech is Possible

Barendregt, W., Becker, C., Cheon, E., Clement, A., Reynolds-Cuéllar, P., Schuler, D., & Suchman, L. (2021). Defund Big Tech, Refund Community. Tech Otherwise. https://doi.org/10.21428/93b2c832.e0100a3f
Project Research

Curriculum: Power + AI

Check out the project site here. The pursuit of justice in AI requires more than just tweaking the numbers. It requires us to “study up”...
Project Research

Theme | Mobility On-Demand

Urban populations around the world are rapidly growing. To improve livability, urban residents must reduce dependency on fossil fuels and...
Project Research

Resilience Across Scales

Resilience Across Scales is a research theme that encompasses the work of a few Media Lab Principal Investigators and their research grou...
Project Research

[bike] swarm

As bikes navigate city streets after dark, they are often equipped with lights. The lights make the bikes visible to cars or other bikers...
Archived
Project Research

Viral Vote

Climate change and the domino effect it creates will require coordination at scales we haven’t seen and new forms of organization to addr...
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Voter Education through Network Analytics

In “normal” times, the process of voting can be confusing enough for many Americans -- from whether and where they’re registered, to abse...
Archived
Research
Human Dynamics

Exploring how social networks can influence our lives in business, health, governance, and technology adoption and diffusion
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Research
Design Fiction

Sparking discussion about the social, cultural, and ethical implications of emerging technologies through design and storytelling
Article Research

Literati CTO Finds “Tech for Good” in Boxes of Books

Civic Media alum Charlie DeTar talks to the MIT Alumni Association about his work with Literati, using technology for social good, and more.
Archived
Project Research

Streetchange

Computer vision uncovers predictors of physical urban change

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Project Research

Algorithmic Justice League

www.ajl.orgAn unseen force is rising—helping to determine who is hired, granted a loan, or even how long someone spends in prison. This f...
Article Research

Episode 89: Chelsea Barabas

Joshua B. Hoe interviews Chelsea Barabas of MIT about criminal justice monitoring, surveillance, and algorithms
Post Research

City Science team wins Best Student Paper Award at Computing Conference 2020

Congratulations to City Science researchers Alex Berke, Jason Nawyn, Thomas Sanchez Lengeling, and group head Kent Larson!
Archived
Project Research

Moral Machine

The Moral Machine is a platform for gathering a human perspective on moral decisions made by machine intelligence, such as self-driving c...
Archived
Article Research

AI researchers say scientific publishers help perpetuate racist algorithms

“This is why we keep seeing race science emerging time and again," writes Chelsea Barabas. "It’s because publishers publish it."
Publication Research

Contact Tracing Technologies: Methods and trade-offs

Alex Berke and Kent Larson, City Science group, MIT Media Lab (2020).
Project Research

Theme | CityScope

City Science researchers are developing a slew of tangible and digital platforms dedicated to solving spatial design and urban planning c...
Project Research

ChampScope

Virtual CityScope Champs-Élysées is an interactive and immersive platform that explores the future of Paris’ most important street.