Since its launch in 2022, the MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MAD) has supported MIT graduate students with a fellowship, allowing recipients to pursue design research and projects while creating community. Pulling from different corners of design, they explore solutions in fields equivalent to sustainability, health, architecture, urban planning, engineering, and social justice.
On May 1, MAD announced the 2024 cohort of Design Fellows on the MIT Museum.
Meet the MIT MAD 2024 Design Fellows
Video: MIT Morningside Academy for Design
Sofia Chiappero, MCP student within the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and MITdesignX affiliate: Chiappero is working across the intersection of community development and technology, aiming to deal with the challenges faced by underserved communities prone to displacement in Latin America. Through a mix of social science and digital inclusion, she seeks to design a brand new approach to researching human interactions and replicating them in virtual settings, with the last word goal of preserving the identity of those communities and giving them visibility for resilient growth.
Clemence Couteau, MBA candidate within the MIT Sloan School of Management: Couteau is tackling the rise of postpartum depression amongst U.S. moms by aiming to develop a digital solution empowering at-risk pregnant women to enhance mental health outcomes. This involves a self-directed therapy chatbot in a mobile app, based on the “ROSE” protocol.
Mateo Fernandez, MArch student within the Department of Architecture: Fernandez explores learn how to depart from the present construction industry, designing alternatives equivalent to growing buildings with biomaterials, and deploying advanced 3D printing technologies for constructing.
Charlotte Folinus, PhD candidate within the Department of Mechanical Engineering: Folinus creates latest methods for designing soft robots, using these tools to design soft robots for gentle interactions, uncertain environments, and long mechanical lifetimes. “I’m really excited to be surrounded by individuals who can do things I cannot. That is after I’m the perfect version of myself. I believe that is the community I’ll find here,” she says.
Alexander Htet Kyaw, master’s student within the Department of Architecture and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and MITdesignX affiliate: Htet Kyaw’s current research utilizes robotic assembly, multimodal interaction, and generative AI to challenge conventional manufacturing and fabrication practices. He’s working on an AI-driven workflow that translates design intent into tangible objects through robotic assembly.
Dení López PhD candidate within the Department of Urban Studies and Planning: As a Design Fellow, López uses design research to judge and extend the scope of Bicheeche Diidxa’, a long-standing Participatory Motion Research initiative for disaster resilience focused on five Zapotec communities along the Los Perros River in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Caitlin Morris, PhD candidate in media arts and sciences: Morris’s research explores the role of multisensory influences on cognition and learning, and seeks to seek out and construct the bridges between digital and computational interfaces and hands-on, community-centered learning and teaching practices.
Maxine Perroni-Scharf, PhD candidate within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science: Perroni-Scharf is currently working on developing techniques that enable the invention and design of extremal metamaterials — 3D printed materials that exhibit extreme properties arising not from their chemical composition, but reasonably from their structure. These may be applied to a wide range of tasks, from battery design to accessibility.
Lyle Regenwetter, PhD candidate within the Department of Mechanical Engineering: Regenwetter develops methods to include design requirements, equivalent to safety constraints and performance objectives, into the training strategy of generative AI models.
Zane Schemmer, PhD candidate within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Schemmer’s research goals to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment by designing efficient structures that consider the provision of local materials.
