Research
City Science

Looking beyond smart cities
Project Research

Augmented Eternity and Swappable Identities

Have you ever wondered what a friend would do if she was in your decision-making situation? Or thought about where a family mem...
Research
Space Enabled

Advancing justice in Earth's complex systems using designs enabled by space
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Signal Kinetics

Extending human and computer abilities in sensing, communication, and actuation through signals and networks
Archived
Research
Scalable Cooperation

Reimagining human cooperation in the age of social media and artificial intelligence
Research
Social Machines

Promoting deeper learning and understanding in human networks
Project Research

SPRING: A Smart Platform for Research, Intervention, and Neurodevelopmental Growth

SPRING is a custom-built hardware and software platform for children with neuro-differences. The system automates data acquisition, optim...
Research
Open Ocean

Open Ocean
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Poetic Justice

Exploring new forms of social justice through art
Research
Fluid Interfaces

Designing systems for cognitive enhancement
Project Research

Battery-Free Subsea Internet-of-Things

We present Piezo-Acoustic Backscatter (PAB), the first technology that enables backscatter networking in underwater environments. PAB rel...
Project Research

Low-cost invasive species management in coastal ecosystems: A case study in Benin

All over Africa, experts use satellite Earth Observation (EO) data for applications such as monitoring crop health or assessing the risk ...
Research
Community Biotechnology

Community Biotechnology
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Biomechatronics

Enhancing human physical capability
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Human Dynamics

Exploring how social networks can influence our lives in business, health, governance, and technology adoption and diffusion
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Sculpting Evolution

Cultivating wisdom through evolutionary and ecological engineering
Article Research

Building a more resilient, data-driven economy

“In a resilient economy, power and decision-making should be distributed among a diverse set of stakeholders."
Research
Responsive Environments

Augmenting and mediating human experience, interaction, and perception with sensor networks
Research
Viral Communications

Creating scalable technologies that evolve with user inventiveness
Research
ML Learning

ML Learning
Project Research

Public Library Innovation Exchange

Public libraries are one of most trusted public institutions in the US and increasingly provide a broad range of education services, rang...
Project Research

Dressed in Data

This project steps beyond data visualizations to create data experiences. It aims to engage not only the analytic mind, but also the arti...
Article Research

MIT professor wants to shift power to the people by building local data collectives

"Building the New Economy" envisions data co-ops to make it easier for people to control and analyze their own financial and health data.
Project Research

Let's Talk Privacy: Exploring how privacy and data governance policies translate into practice

Let’s Talk Privacy explores how the implementation of privacy and data governance policies might impact a variety of fields.Project Let’s...
Post Research

From legislation to implementation: Exploring how to prototype privacy bills through human-centered policymaking + design

The rise of data privacy breaches and a look into policies that address these challenges
Project Research

Predicting students' wellbeing from physiology, phone, mobility, and behavioral data

The goal of this project is to apply machine learning methods to model the wellbeing of MIT undergraduate students. Extensive data is obt...
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...
Article Research

Informing Covid-19 preparedness in Sierra Leone

MIT Governance Lab and the Institute for Governance Reform work with the government of Sierra Leone to conduct rapid-response surveys.
Archived
Research
Open Agriculture (OpenAg)

Open Agriculture Initiative (OpenAg)
Project Research

The Guardians

The Guardians Project aims to use the same game design principles used in mobile games to help people form beneficial long-term habits an...
Article Research

The perfect privacy storm

New issues in privacy debate with technology and contact-tracing.
Archived
Project Research

Personal Food Computer

The OpenAg™ Personal Food Computer is a tabletop-sized, controlled environment agriculture technology platform that uses robotic systems ...
Archived
Project Research

Safe Paths

Safe Paths is an MIT-led, free, open source technology that enables jurisdictions and individuals to maximize privacy, while also ma...
Post Research

Lesson of a Pandemic for a Connected World

Let’s jumpstart a new infrastructure for industry, health, learning, and the people.
Article Research

Digital Trust: Talking to David Shrier

David Shrier talks about how blockchain technology could improve the security and accessibility of information.
Post Research

Family-Friendly Data Privacy + AI Activities: Interactive lessons to help kids learn and design with data privacy in mind

This is a unique time to engage and teach children about the benefits and limitations of technology.
Article Research

Latest weapon in tracing and tracking coronavirus infections: your smartphone

Your phone soon might know if you have spent time near someone with the COVID-19 virus.
Article Research

Clever cryptography could protect privacy in Covid-19 contact-tracing apps

Researchers are racing to achieve the benefits of location-tracking without the surveillance.
Article Research

3 Questions: Catherine D’Ignazio on visualizing Covid-19 data

“Data scientists and visualization designers need to take their civic role very seriously in a pandemic,” says the MIT assistant professor.
Article Research

Supercomputers help researchers speed drug discovery for Covid-19

An MIT research team is using supercomputers to help develop a drug to treat the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Article Research

WATCH: Can my phone tell if I’ve been near someone with COVID-19?

To help explain how this works is Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor at MIT’s Media Lab.
Article Research

Local governments warm to MIT coronavirus-tracking app

The app is designed to let people discover if they've crossed paths with someone who's been infected with COVID-19.
Article Research

Safe Paths: A privacy-first approach to contact tracing

A multinational team develops new tools to slow the spread of pandemics.
Project Research

Split Learning: Distributed and collaborative learning

Split Learning: Distributed deep learning without sharing raw data Project Page: https://splitlearning.github.io/Abstract: ...
Article Research

Bluetooth signals from your smartphone could automate Covid-19 contact tracing while preserving privacy

A system that enables smartphones to transmit “chirps” to nearby devices could notify people if they have been near an infected person.
Project Research

AI + Data Privacy Activities for K-9 Students

Policymakers, practitioners, and researchers are grappling with some herculean questions regarding kids' safety online. Homemade sli...
Post Research

Cybersecurity Badge Day 2020: Girl Scouts of Eastern MA focuses on data privacy and tech policy

The Personal Robots team collaborated with the Girl Scouts and the EMK Institute for the US Senate to teach 60 students about data privacy.
Post Research

Signal Kinetics team wins Explorer Prize in Ocean Observing Prize's DISCOVER Competition

Team Pulse of the Ocean becomes an Explorer Prize winner in the DISCOVER Competition—the first stage of the Ocean Observing Prize.
Article Research

A new app would say if you’ve crossed paths with someone who is infected

Private Kit: Safe Paths shares information about your movements in a privacy-preserving way—and could let health officials tackle COVID-19.
Article Research

Phones could track the spread of Covid-19. Is it a good idea?

China, South Korea used smartphone apps to monitor people with the disease. Americans have different views of privacy and data collection.
Research
Camera Culture

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

5 questions on data and accountability with Julia Angwin

Read an interview with Angwin and Catherine D'Ignazio on machine bias, data privacy, and the role of journalism in creating accountability.
Project Research

City Science Network

MIT City Science has developed an international network of cooperative City Science LabsWe are developing concepts and key technology tha...
Article Research

Finding the blank spots in big data

Artists and designers are working to address a major problem for marginalized communities in the data economy.
Article Research

Ufuoma Ovienmhada of MIT Media Lab Space Enabled group is using satellite data to curb the effects of invasive species in Africa

Ufuoma Ovienmhada discusses her work using satellite data to help manage invasive water hyacinth in Benin.
Project Research

Reversed Urbanism

Predicting Urban Performance through Behavioral Patterns in Temporal Telecom DataThis study explores a novel method to analyze diverse be...
Publication Research

Reversed urbanism: Inferring urban performance through behavioral patterns in temporal telecom data

Noyman, A., Doorley, R., Xiong, Z., Alonso, L., Grignard, A., & Larson, K. (2019). Reversed urbanism: Inferring urban performance through behavioral patterns in temporal telecom data. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 46(8), 1480–1498. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399808319840668
Archived
Project Research

Mapping the Globe

Mapping the Globe is an interactive tool and map that helps us understand where The Boston Globe directs its attention. Media attention m...
Archived
Project Research

City Science Lab Andorra

Andorra and the City Science research group at the MIT Media Lab are taking on the challenge of turning Andorra into an “Internationally ...
Archived
Project Research

Predicting Trust Between People

Machine learning model outperforms human judgementOur computational trust model is capable of predicting—above human accuracy—the degree ...
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Intentional Inference of Emotions

Emotion recognition modeled as a goal-directed process!
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Human-Robot Trust

Unconventional mixing of research fields introduces a new method to study human behavior using social robots.
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Artificial listener with social intelligence

A social robot modifies its behavior to change what you think about it!
Archived
Project Research

Media Cloud

Media Cloud is a platform for studying media ecosystems. By tracking millions of stories published online, the system allows researchers ...
Archived
Research
Ultimate Media

Ultimate Media
Project Research

P2PSTORY: Dataset of children as storytellers and listeners in peer-to-peer interactions

Understanding social-emotional behaviors in storytelling interactions plays a critical role in the development of interactive and educati...
Research
Civic Media

Creating technology for social change
Archived
Research
Collective Learning

Transforming data into knowledge
Research
Personal Robots

Building socially engaging robots and interactive technologies to help people live healthier lives, connect with others, and learn better
Archived
Research
Advancing Wellbeing

Advancing Wellbeing
Project Research

What is the optimal way to diversify an economy?

One of the eternal challenges of economic development is how to identify the economic activities that a country, city, or region should t...