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SeeBoat (Thermal Fishing Bob): In-place environmental data visualization

Two of the most important traits of environmental hazards today are their invisibility and the fact that they are experienced by communitie…

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Biohacked cyborg plants may help prevent environmental disaster

The glowing lily is one of Harpreet Sareen’s botanical “cyborgs”—vegetation he biohacks to serve as environmental watchdogs.

He quit Google to work on climate change. Now, he’s helping others do the same thing

In July 2020, Eugene Kirpichov + Media Lab alum Cassandra Xia started a Slack workspace called Work On Climate—today, it has 8,500+ members.

Best New Ideas in Money: The road ahead for public transit

A discussion of the future of public transportation, with a highlight of the Autonomous Bicycle project led by PhD student Naroa Coretti.

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PhysioHMD

Virtual and augmented reality headsets are unique as they have access to our facial area, an area that presents an excellent opportunity fo…

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KnittedKeyboard II

Spanning from the early Musical Telegraph and Electronic Sackbut, to the late EMS Synthi AKS and Moog Synthesizers, electronic music and mu…

Window 0∞

How will new mobility patterns shape the built environment?

Q&A: Climate Grand Challenges finalists on using data and science to forecast climate-related risk

Faculty leaders highlight innovations that can close longstanding knowledge gaps and reimagine how the world responds to the climate crisis.

Ocean vital signs

MIT scientists hope to deploy a fleet of drones to get a better sense of how much carbon the ocean is absorbing, + how much more it can take

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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 a…

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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.

MIT clean tech companies to watch

Explore a few of the clean tech startups begun by MIT researchers and alumni, including Media Lab spinoffs Graviky Labs and Stable Auto.

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Synthetic Apiary

The Synthetic Apiary proposes a new kind of environment, bridging urban and organismic scales by exploring one of the most important organi…

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Q&A: Climate Grand Challenges finalists on building equity and fairness into climate solutions

Faculty leaders discuss the opportunities and obstacles in developing, scaling, and implementing their work rapidly.

Argus: Water monitoring through nanosensors inside living plants

Our traditional manufacturing, fabrication, and electronics have been centered around synthetic and completely artificial techniques. Comin…

What Biodesign Means to Me

Alum Harpreet Sareen writes about how humans might form a type of symbiosis with the plant kingdom in the future.

Emma Chory wins 2022 SLAS Innovation Award

The SLAS Innovation Award is a $10,000 cash prize recognizing the work behind one exceptional podium presentation.

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A Co-Design Experience: Technology Design for Coffee Production | 2019 Edition

🚨Application to the 2022 Co-Design Experience here bit.ly/codesign2022 🚨In the Civic Media and Space Enabled groups, we are explo…

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Speeding up directed evolution of molecules in the lab

Using a new robotic platform, researchers can simultaneously track hundreds of microbial populations as they evolve new proteins.

Living Observatory: Sensor networks for documenting and experiencing ecology

Living Observatory is an initiative for documenting and interpreting ecological change that will allow people, individually and collectivel…

Butlr Closes $7.9M Seed Funding for Breakthrough People-Sensing Platform

Butlr's people-sensing platform uses body heat to provide actionable spatial insights for the built environment.

Into the anthropocosmos with Ariel Ekblaw

A conversation recently aired on Planetary Radio, hosted by Mat Kaplan of the Planetary Society, featuring SEI director Ariel Ekblaw.

Scientists and musicians tackle climate change together

Discussion at MIT explores ways the music industry can help in the battle to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Epi/20: Fluid Music | Mutating Music with MIT Media Lab’s Charles Holbrow

Alum Charles Holbrow talks about his work and shares his views on the past, present, and future of music and technology.

Saving seaweed with machine learning

Charlene Xia is a Media Lab alum now pursuing a PhD in MIT Mechanical Engineering, combining her passions for food and sustainability.

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Low Cost Soil Carbon Sensing

Regenerative agriculture, or “carbon farming,” is the use of agricultural practices and crops that draw down excess atmospheric carbon thro…

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A Scalable Networked Smart Sensate Skin

We have developed tightly coupled sensor network that tries to mimic some of the sensory characteristics of a natural skin. Developed in a …

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Publication Research

Electronic Textile Gaia: Ubiquitous Computational Substrates Across Geometric Scales

Wicaksono, I.*, Cherston, J.*, & Paradiso, J. A. (2021). Electronic Textile Gaia: Ubiquitous Computational Substrates Across Geometric Scales. IEEE Pervasive Computing.

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LEGO Wayfinder

The LEGO Wayfinder project combines LEGO, robotics, and seawater into a playground of project-based learning and citizen science for buddin…

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My Deep Sea, My Backyard

Seventy percent of nations have deep-sea environments within their maritime Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), yet only 16 percent of them ar…

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Tracking Marine Snow

Biological Carbon Pump (BCP), which refers to the transport of particulate organic carbon (POC) from the ocean’s surface to the bottom, dir…

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Ocean Cultures

The Māori of Aotearoa (New Zealand) have a long and deep connection to their island and ocean ecosystem. Concepts such as rā…

Danielle Wood speaks on "The Down-to-Earth Applications of Space" with Bloomberg New Economy Forum

Space Enabled director Danielle Wood talks about applying space technologies to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

‘Living’ space as the newest frontier: MIT’s Ariel Ekblaw to focus on self-assembling space architecture and habitats in CLS

Ariel Ekblaw spoke at the Chautauqua Institution about her novel space architecture ideas and a call for more dialogue on space ethics.

Driving commuters toward sustainable options

How data from Access MIT informs flexible, sustainable commutes as staff returns to campus.

A New Chapter for Space Sustainability

MIT researchers are co-leading the design of a global Space Sustainability Rating system that will soon be operational.

A new chapter for space sustainability

MIT researchers are co-leading the design of a global Space Sustainability Rating system that will soon be operational.

Therms-Up!: DIY Inflatables and Interactive Materials by Upcycling Wasted Thermoplastic Bags

Therms-Up! is a DIY method of creating inflatables and prototyping interactive materials from wasted thermoplastic bags that easily found a…

A sustainability rating for space debris

A team led by the Space Enabled group, ESA, and the World Economic Forum will address waste in Earth’s orbit

The printing ink on Naomi Campbell’s Pangaia sweatshirt was made from air pollution

Vogue reports on the collaboration between Pangaia and Media Lab spinoff Graviky Labs.

This fashion label is making clothes out of air pollution

Pangaia is the first fashion label to print graphics using ink made out of toxic air pollution.

Kent Larson on Resilient Communities and Sustainability | "On Cities" Masterclass Series

Kent Larson considers the societal stressors caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and those that the world will face post-pandemic.

Pangaia’s game changing collaboration draws carbon from air pollution to print textiles

Read about a collaboration between Media Lab spinoff Graviky Labs and materials science company Pangaia, both founded by Media Lab alums.

3 Questions: Claude Grunitzky MBA '12 on launching TRUE Africa University

CIS research affiliate describes his goals in creating a webinar series exploring sustainable development in Africa.

Visualizing the Future of Spaceship Earth (Prof. Dava Newman)

Prof Dava Newman fields listeners' questions about climate change and introduces EarthDNA, a platform for climate advocacy and action.

MIT Space Policy Compendium

Read the new MIT Space Policy Compendium led by Dava Newman with co-authors including Ariel Ekblaw and Danielle Wood.

RF-EATS: Food and liquid sensing in practical environments using RFIDs

RF-EATS is a new system that can verify the authenticity of food and liquids in closed containers without opening them or requiring an…

The catalyzing potential of J-WAFS seed grants

Signal Kinetics head Fadel Adib and other junior faculty members talk about the ways the J-WAFS’ seed grant program has catalyzed their work

Eight from MIT named 2021 Sloan Research Fellows

Awards honor young professors in the Media Lab and departments of Biology, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Chemical Engineering, EECS, + Math

Learning from the Restoration of Wetlands on Cranberry Farmland: Preliminary Benefits Assessment

Read the preliminary report from the Living Observatory at Tidmarsh on the benefits of restoration projects on four cranberry farms in MA.

Battery-Free Underwater GPS

Can we build a battery-free underwater GPS? While underwater localization is a long-studied problem, we seek to bring it to batt…

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LightCloud: Future of Dynamic Lighting in the Shared Space

Lighting conditions in an indoor environment have been shown to affect our cognition and behaviors in a variety of ways. On average, we spe…

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Battery-Free Subsea Internet-of-Things

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

Media Lab Research Takes Flight

Space research, led by a diverse team of women scientists, will be presented at this year's AIAA Ascend Conference.

The ethical way to alter organisms

An inventor of CRISPR-based gene drive has some advice to improve science, ethics, and the life-saving potential of these technologies.

Episode 6: Reshaping nature through gene drives

Kevin Esvelt and other experts talk about the risks and possible benefits of using gene drives to eliminate diseases and invasive species.

Why this deep-sea explorer thinks diversity is so important for science

To oceanographer Katy Croff Bell, the seas’ uncharted depths are full of opportunities to engage women and people of color in science.

An underwater navigation system powered by sound

New approach could spark an era of battery-free ocean exploration, with applications ranging from marine conservation to aquaculture.

Scalable and Ultra-Low Power Ocean IoT

We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of 𝑈2𝐵, a technology that enables scalable ad ultra-low power ocean IoT. At the…

How to send underwater messages without batteries

A new device extracts energy from ambient noise

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 of…

National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator awards two grants to MIT

MIT received two Convergence Accelerator grants from the NSF—one of which is for the Smart Oceans 2020 conference co-hosted by the Media Lab

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Identifying the human impacts of climate change

Climate change is going to alter the environments that we depend on in myriad ways. We're using data to identify and quantify these potenti…

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Open Phenome Project

The aim of this project is to create an open source digital library with open data sets that cross link phenotypic response in plants …

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TransparenSea: AI for Sustainable Fishing

TransparenSea is an AI system that uses video from tuna longline vessels as input to identify dangerous fishing practices while at sea.Comm…

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Low-power wireless environmental sensor network

Tidmarsh is a 600-acre former cranberry farm near Plymouth, MA that has undergone a restoration to wetland. We have instrumented the site w…