By Eric Bender

“If people tell us, it's a really hard challenge and maybe it's impossible, that's great motivation for us,” says Dava Newman, director of the MIT Media Lab. “Because we want to solve the most challenging problems.”

“Our North Star is those crazy ideas, taking risks, working together across all the disciplines. We're a really amazing ecosystem, kind of a micro-ecosystem of MIT, where we have artists and designers, engineers and scientists all within the same lab,” says Newman.

Known for its willingness to take on daunting problems and its cornucopia of pathbreaking prototypes, the MIT Media Lab celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2025. The Lab is a 500+-person community of faculty, graduate students, and staff, which almost doubles in size if you add its undergraduate researchers, Newman says. The 25 research groups, centers, and initiatives solve hard puzzles on scales ranging from genetics and nanotechnology to the human body to cities and out into the solar system.

The Media Lab's best-known creations include the One Laptop per Child computer, robotic prostheses, technology behind the Guitar Hero games, LEGO Mindstorms, “electronic ink” that laid the foundation for today's touchscreens, autonomous vehicles of every kind, the wildly popular Scratch programming language for children, a string of famous “social robots”, the invention of new fields such as computational social science and affective computing, and more than 100 spinoff companies.

Among more recent projects, suggesting the wildly diverse spectrum of work currently underway, are imaging systems that can see around corners, ultrasound treatments for neurological diseases, transforming light within architecture into 3D glass sculptures, and garments made with fibers that change shape to become warmer when the temperature drops.

“Everything we do is human-centered design,” Newman emphasizes. “That's fundamental to our vision, our mission and our shared values. It's really important that we make sure that our inventions and our ideas are shared and have impact as widely as possible. That's when we know we've gotten it right.”

Applying AI and human-centered design

Two research themes apply across the entire Media Lab, she comments.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, one theme is artificial intelligence. “Every single group is working on some element of enhancing AI,” she says. “We develop and use AI every day, and our Media Lab signature is to focus on AI that enhances the human experience.”

Investigators are collaborating with almost every Media Lab member company on AI enhancements—learning the company's particular issues of concern and then working together to create and adapt foundational AI models for given corporate needs. “The AI has to be trusted and has to be responsible,” Newman stresses.

Another ubiquitous concept is the critical role of creative design, says Newman, who points out that design is now the second-most-popular minor among MIT undergraduates. “Students get this,” she says. “They want to be makers, they want to design, they want to be creative, and that's in alignment with our cultivating creativity.”

“Again, all of our work is centered around human-centered design and experiences,” Newman says. “What do the interfaces of the future look like? In these new products, what's that human experience and does it cause delight and flourishing?” She points to one example in paper-thin sensors that can be embedded in clothing—ultrasound patches that could be placed in a woman's bra to pick up the earliest clues of breast cancer.

Suited for Space

Another striking demonstration of the Media Lab's interdisciplinary work and radical results is the Spiderman-like suit in Newman's office, a recent iteration of her pioneering BioSuit™ space suits. She and her colleagues continue to generate next-generation space suits for safe and healthy human space travel.

Some of these suits are dramatically advanced for outings from space vehicles. The traditional Michelin-Man style suit, which weighs almost 300 pounds, keeps you alive and guards you from the vacuum of space but barely lets you move your arms and legs, she points out.

Instead of the traditional pressurized hard shell, her “shrink-wrapped” approach leverages advanced mathematical analysis to generate the suit's beautiful Spiderman-looking pattern, which applies mechanical pressure directly to the skin and remains highly flexible. She and collaborators also are investigating new materials that can produce not just pressure but perhaps some thermal and radiation protection. (The Moon runs extremely hot and cold, while Mars is just extremely cold, and radiation protection is the most significant challenge for human planetary missions.)

Other suit designs are tailored for astronauts to wear within their space vehicles, and one of these just flew onboard the International Space Station on a private astronaut mission. This “skin suit” aims to provide constant resistive exercise to strengthen muscles and bones to keep astronauts fit, which is no easy task in a weightless microgravity environment.

“The International Space Station is an amazing environmental laboratory that teaches us about really important things here on Earth,” says Newman. The skin suits, for instance, might offer ways to avoid the thinning of bone tissue that comes with age. Better understanding of how astronauts can be prevented from losing bone and muscle in space could be applied to hundreds of millions of people on Earth. “We always keep applications on Earth in mind in our biomedical work in space,” she says.

Back to the Moon, and eyes on earth

The space exploration initiative (SEI) highlights the deeply interdisciplinary work at the Media Lab, and at the Institute more broadly. The MIT To the Moon to Stayprogram, a part of the commercial lunar program established by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is on the mission to land a rover on the lunar South Pole next year.

“Can you imagine getting MIT back to the moon after 50 years?” Newman asks. “I'm the Apollo Program Professor; I can't wait.”

The Media Lab's SEI payloads on the mission rover include a modified commercial camera delivering extremely high-resolution stereo imagery, “a very inexpensive way to test essential technologies for future human missions,” says Newman. More dramatically, the rover also will carry an “AstroAnt” matchbox-car-sized rover that will perform thermal inspections of the rover's exterior surfaces. The experimenters hope to deploy swarms of these miniature foot soldiers in later expeditions. Finally, the HUMANS (Humanity United with MIT Art and Nanotechnology in Space) experiment includes audio recordings with voices from around the world stating what space exploration means to them. “We are democratizing space and making sure that everyone can join our lunar mission,” she says.

Newman stresses that our most important spaceship is Spaceship Earth, where researchers and decision makers can benefit from the petabytes of environmental data streaming from Earth observation satellites. “More than 50% of climate variables are now measured from space,” she says.

These satellite streams are the foundation of Earth Mission Control. This will be an immersive data visualization platform that delivers vital signs for Earth, such as emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, in an accessible and comprehensive form. The long-term goal, Newman says, is to boost understanding of the impact and effectiveness of climate actions and policies; “we also work on making these fabulous tools intuitive and interactive.”

Earth Mission Control aims to be fully open source; the simulation platform will let people zoom in on local environmental data and give them more agency in handling their own threats of climate change. “You know what's going to work in your neighborhood, maybe your block, maybe your city,” she says. “Collectively, let's see how much we can accelerate positive change!”

Hands-on with industry

The Media Lab runs largely on corporate funding and companies collaborate very closely on projects. For instance, Castrol provides the space-grade lubricants that will handle extreme environments for the AstroAnt rover, and has funded fieldwork testing the rover and other technologies to support lunar missions

“Over the last four decades, we've had a very special model working with industry,” says Newman. 

“Our members are literally at the table with us, telling us some of their hardest challenges and problems,” she says. “Our role is thinking about the future, maybe five or 10 years or longer out, getting out of the comfort zone, taking risks, and designing for the future we want to realize. We like to start by prototyping. We are a prototype shop.” Testing early prototypes, the team will filter out the most promising ideas, some of which may evolve into successful products or services.

“We are flexible, we have a very short turnaround time for academia, and we love to work on a really fast-paced cycle with our industry members,” Newman says. “Give us your hard problems, come spend time with us, work with us! Help us imagine that just future, that creative future, that future that we know is within reach. We can only attain that future by working across disciplines with our industry, government, and philanthropic collaborators.”