People

  • Federico Casalegno
    Director, MIT Mobile Experience Lab; Director, MIT-FBK Green Home Alliance
    Director

    Federico Casalegno, Ph.D., is the Director of the MIT Mobile Experience Lab and Associate Director of the MIT Design Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 2008, he is the director of the Green Home Alliance between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Fondazione Bruno Kessler in Italy. He is adjunct full professor at IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy, and has been awarded an honorary professorship at the University of Glasgow, Glasgow School of Art.

    A social scientist with an interest in the impact of networked digital technologies in human behavior and society, Dr. Casalegno both teaches and leads advanced research at MIT, and design interactive media to foster connections between people, information and physical places using cutting-edge information technology., Since 2004, he has also held a position as Lecturer at the MIT Media Lab Smart Cities group.

    From 2004 to 2007, he worked at Motorola, Inc., as Technology and Product Innovation Analyst, designing pioneering products, experiences and services for mobile devices. Previously, from 1994 to 2000, he worked at Philips Design on connected communities and new media environments to inform design and product experience planning., Dr. Casalegno holds a Ph.D. in Sociology of Culture and Communication from the Sorbonne University, Paris V, with a focus on mediated communication and social interaction in networked communities and wired cities., He has published several scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, books and articles. For the Living Memory, connected community project, he was awarded the Best Concept prize by the American Leading Industrial Designers I.D. Magazine, and the Silver Prize Design Concept by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

    More about Federico
  • Nate Howe
    Administrative Assistant
    Administrative

    Nate is Federico's assistant, and has been at MIT since February 2010. He holds a BA in Drama from the University of Hartford, has worked for Harvard's investment company, and also spent a couple of years managing professional concert organists. In his spare time, he sings in the choir, plays piano and guitar, acts occasionally and sometimes even finds time to take photos.

  • Amar Boghani
    Research Assistant

    Amar Boghani is a S.M. candidate in the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT, and holds a B.S. in Computer Science from RIT. Working primarily on the Locast project, he is currently most interested in how media platforms influence and shape individuals' relationships with their cultural, social, and geographic spaces.

  • Wesley Graybill
    Research Assistant

    Wesley is an MEng and S.B. candidate in Computer Science at MIT and holds an S.B. in Mathematics from MIT. In his current research he is working on a collaboration between MEL and the MERS group in CSAIL. His work within MEL centers on the intelligent controller design for the Sustainable Connected Home. His research focuses on artificial intelligence and plan recognition, in particular, the prediction of resident behaviors from simple sensor networks.

  • Onur Yuce Gun
    Research Assistant

    Onur Yüce Gün is an architect and computational design specialist. He is currently a Presidential Fellow at MIT Department of Architecture pursuing his PhD in Design and Computation. Onur's work and teaching focuses on computational and generative design processes and methodologies. He is the author of the chapter ‘Geometric Gestures’ in the book ‘Elements of Parametric Design’ alongside numerous academic articles published in renowned conferences.

    Onur initiated and directed the KPF NY Computational Geometry 2006 onwards and taught at Pratt Institute as Media Expert. He has been an invited critic around US (Harvard, MIT, UPenn, Columbia, UIC) and Turkey (METU, ITU, YTU), and conducted numerous international workshops in EU and US. He instituted and coordinated the core first year design and geometry courses in the emerging undergraduate design program of Istanbul Bilgi University.

    Onur holds a SMArchS Computation degree from MIT (2006) and a B.Arch. from METU (2004) as top of the class and continues architectural design practice under his Computational Design Collaboration initiative: O-CDC (http://o-cdc.com/).

  • Jennifer Milne
    Research Assistant
    Research Assistant

    Jennifer is a second-year Master's student at MIT's Mechanical Engineering Department. She holds a first class MEng in Product Design Engineering from Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow. Jennifer is interested in changing consumer trends and lifestyle aspirations, and has interned in Design Strategy at Continuum, and as an engineer at IDEO. Prior to coming to MIT Jennifer worked in Geneva as a policy intern at Shelter Centre, and was president of the Glasgow University branch of Engineers Without Borders UK. She continues to be passionate about increasing access to technology. In Fall 2011 she was the teaching assistant for the New Media Building design workshop and continues to conduct her research with the lab into telepresence robots.

  • Zoe Schladow
    Research Assistant

    Zoe received her BA in Architecture from Wellesley College. Her work explores how user-driven design can enhance shared experiences. She is interested in users' interpretations of a space or idea, and how those perceptions can then have consequential effects on the space or idea itself. Her background in technical design and the fine arts helps to develop systems and technologies that are both functional and whimsical.

  • Kelly Shaw
    Research Assistant

    Kelly is a third-year Master's student at MIT's School of Architecture. She holds a BS in Product Design from Stanford University. Prior to coming to MIT she worked as a product design intern for Jimmyjane and Knoend and spent two years at Facebook as a User Operations Associate, where she worked on mediating product launches and customer feedback loops. She is currently working on MEL's Bank 2.0 Project, which imagines the future physical and digital interfaces of banking. Her interests lie in exploring user-driven design at many scales.

  • Orkan Telhan
    Ph.D. Candidate, MIT SAP Design and Computation
    Research Assistant

    Orkan worked as part of the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab researching urban interfaces and experimental media in public settings before joining the Mobile Experience Lab. Prior to that, he studied media arts at the State University of New York at Buffalo with a focus on interactive computer graphics and electronics. Telhan holds SM degree in media arts and sciences from MIT, MFA degree in media arts production from SUNY at Buffalo, MFA and BFA degrees in media theory and visual design from Bilkent University, Ankara.

  • Catherine Anne Winfield
    Research Assistant

    Catherine Winfield is a third year Master's of Architecture candidate at MIT. Prior to coming to MIT she worked at Sasaki Associates designing architectural interiors. She has built work in Chicago and Boston, both as part of a professional team and independently. She has also taught studio and rendering courses at the Boston Architectural College. Catherine holds a BSID from Endicott College and is a LEED Accredited Professional. During her time at MIT she has worked with Kennedy Violich Architecture and the SAP Design and Computation Group as a researcher. She is currently work on the Bank 2.0 project at MEL reinventing the physical and digital spaces in which we conduct our financial transactions.

  • Pascal Chesnais
    Visiting Scientist

    Pascal specializes in leading talented research teams in creating prototypes of innovative services and applications. Previously he was Senior Research Director at Orange Labs Boston. There he helped create and staff France Telecom Research and Development Boston lab. Defined research and development plans, managed research teams and projects, and created new mobile technologies involving multimodal haptics, electronic publishing, location based applications and services.

  • Carla Farina
    Post-doctoral Fellow
    Visiting Scientist

    Carla holds a M.S. Degree in Architecture and a Ph.D in Architectural Technologies and Lighting Design from the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza.Before arriving at M.I.T. she was a Lecturer at the University of Rome for the Degree in the Industrial Design and a member of the editorial Staff for the magazine Diid Disegno Industriale/Idustrial Design.

    She works as a researcher in M.I.T. since 2006, (2006/2009 in the House_n Lab), and her research is mainly focused on the Mass Customization Strategy applied to the modular and prefabricated architecture and on green and sustainable home.

  • Leonardo Benuzzi
    Project Coordinator
    Researcher

    Leonardo Benuzzi works primarily on the Green Home Alliance between the Fondazione Bruno Kessler and the MIT Mobile Experience Lab. The role of Scouting and Coordination is intended to bridge the two research's center with the concrete aim of building a 1:1 prototype of the Connected Sustainable Home. He is also in charge of dealing with the company that wants to become partner of the Alliance. Leonardo has a degree in Economics, and has been working in the lab for the past two years. Before joining the Mobile Experience Lab, Leonardo worked as the Personal Assistant of the President of Trentino Sviluppo, a local development agency based in North Italy.

  • Leonardo Giusti
    Researcher
    Researcher

    Leonardo Giusti is currently a researcher at the Mobile Experience Lab (MIT, Boston) and assistant professor at IMT-Lucca (Institute for Advanced Studies). His actual research interests concern the design of locative media and mobile technologies to investigate how the convergence between digital information and physical spaces redefines the experience of places. He holds a Ph.D. in Information and Communication Technologies at the Informatics Engineering Department of University of Florence, Italy. He is currently teaching Interaction Design at the University of Trento (Italy). Since 2008 he has given lectures at the University of Siena, University of Sassari, University of Trento and Domus Academy (Milan). He published more than 25 papers in several conferences proceedings and journals in the area of Interaction Design, Human-Robot Interaction and Mobile technologies.

  • Bob Hsiung
    Project Manager
    Researcher

    Bob specializes in leading diverse teams in unusual technical projects. In his previous position at the MIT Media Lab, Bob lead a team comprised of students, faculty and theater professionals to design, execute and perform an innovative new opera featuring semi-autonomous robots and a giant musical chandelier. "Death and the Powers" opened to great critical acclaim in Monaco in 2010.

    Prior to joining MIT, Bob was living and working in Africa as the technical lead for an organization building HIV/MDRTB clinics in the remote mountains of Lesotho. Before that, he lead a team designing interactive multimedia childrens' educational products for the Asian market.

    Bob holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon. His work on the Connected Sustainable Home project is focused on the concrete goal of building the fully-featured, full scale, modular prototype.

  • Sotirios Kotsopoulos
    Architect, Design and Computation
    Researcher

    Sotirios holds a Ph.D. in Design & Computation from MIT (2005), an S.M. Arch in design technology from MIT (2000), an M. Arch from SCI-Arc (1994), under a Fulbright scholarship, and a Diploma in Architectural Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece (1992).

    Sotirios focuses on the theoretical and practical impact of computation in the way we conceptualize and practice design. He is primarily concerned with the logical structures and the paradoxes surrounding the notion of computation in design, and the idea of construction. At MIT, he was involved in computational design courses and multidisciplinary workshops focusing on the use of digital media in design production.

  • Steve Pomeroy
    Systems Designer & Mobile Developer
    Researcher

    Steve Pomeroy is the lead mobile developer and a researcher at the Mobile Experience Lab at MIT. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from the Rochester Institute of Technology where he studied computer language construction and computer system security. His research interests include mobile software and interfaces, communication protocols, physical computing, and free / open source software.

    Before his work at the Mobile Experience Lab, Steve worked at France Telecom Research & Design Boston, a part of Orange Labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, he worked on variety of projects, including: indoor spatial positioning; context-aware mobile interfaces; mesh-network topology reconstruction; interactive dialog-oriented interfaces; a communication protocol and service for interacting with personal geo-spatial context; and a hybrid phone-web interface prototype. In his free time he enjoys dabbling in numerous creative fields including photography, woodworking, and digital electronics design.

  • Nicholas Wallen
    Interaction Designer
    Researcher

    Nicholas Wallen is an Interaction Designer with a M.A. in Interaction Design from Domus Academy in Milan, Italy and a B.A. in Literature and Studio Art from Macalester College. With a focus on designing experiences, he is interested in using pixels, paper and plastic to connect people, objects and their world in unexpected, useful and disruptive ways.

  • Pelin Arslan
    PhD Canditate at Politecnico di Milano, Italy
    Visiting Student

    Pelin is a PhD Candidate in Industrial Design and Multimedia Communication at Politecnico di Milano. Her thesis is about the contribution of cognitive ergonomics in service design for the stimulation of social interaction. Her actual research interests are social innovation and sustainability, user research and design thinking methods. In her professional life, she has worked as a communication designer in 3M and as a product designer in various design studios in Italy. Pelin holds a Double M.Sc degree in Product Service System design at Politecnico di Milano, Eco-compatible Product design at Politecnico di Torino, and B.Sc. degree in Industrial design at Middle East Technical University in Turkey.

  • Marta Isabel Ferreira de Sá
    Visiting Student, TU Delft
    Visiting Student

    Marta is a second-year MSc Strategic Product Design student at TU Delft, the Netherlands. Currently working on her graduation project within the MEL, developing an interactive service solution to better understand how can institutions improve communication both with companies and individuals.

    With a focus on strategic design, Marta likes to explore the boundaries and potentialities of design. For her, design represents a way to constantly explore different micro and macro contexts.

  • Dan Sawada
    Visiting Student, Keio University
    Visiting Student

    Dan is a currently a M.A. course student at Internet Research Lab, Keio University, Japan. He holds an B.A. in information and environment studies, also from Keio University.

    His main research interests include mobile communication technologies, ad-hoc networks, and location-aware distribution of information.

  • William J. Mitchell (1944 -2010)
    In Memoriam
    Director & Co-Founder

    Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences

    William J. Mitchell, Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences at MIT, held the Alexander W. Dreyfoos, Jr. (1954) Professorship and directed the Media Lab's Smart Cities research group. He was the director of the MIT Design Lab, and co-founder of the MIT Mobile Experience Lab. He was formerly Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning and Head of the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, both at MIT.

    http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/obit-mitchell

    http://www.media.mit.edu/people/remembering-bill-mitchell

View full list of Mobile Experience Lab Alumni