In our ongoing audio series, Meet the Labbers, we hear people from all roles across the Media Lab talk about what they do and why they do it.

Today, meet Chrisoula Kapelonis.

Hello, my name is Chrisoula Kapelonis. I look at responsive sensor systems for tracking human activity within the home and responsive systems that react to human activity, as well.

I've been really interested in wearables for a while, but now going off the body onto the architecture as the body and as the skin. So the way that I sort of see it is just a change in scale and a change in materiality or in function. You know, living larger in a smaller space is kind of the question that our lab really heads towards. You know, how do we start to create homes that still have that home feeling but have the ability to be extremely efficient as well?

I take my work home with me. I've created this humongous work space in my living room. It's actually more of a work space than a living room. I think my apartment's kind of perfect for that because I'm here and I'm researching a lot and having conversations with people, and then when I go home, they're sort of still buzzing. I continue working through the night because I'm so excited about the work that I'm doing. It's almost like I do research here and then I go home and I practice and then I come back. It sort of becomes this really eloquent cycle.

Whenever I go to my friends' houses I'm always looking at how is it that they use their spaces because I've been really interested in this question of what you do on a daily basis. It's not about room-to-room: this is the kitchen, this is the dining room, this is the living room and you use them for those functions. It's actually the relationship between all of those that create habit and create routine like they're writing a novel or a narrative, and each one is different because it really is about the relationship between them as opposed to the isolated space itself.

Focus means something very different than zeroing in on a specific discipline.

The Media Lab has been such a crazy experience for me in the greatest way possible because  ... you're taught a lot in life that you need to kind of focus. But what this place has taught me is that focus means something very different than zeroing in on a specific discipline that has a specific set of rules, but focus as really thinking about problems and really thinking about ways in which to solve them that can encompass a lot more tools and collaboration. And, I think that this place has been very special in terms of unlocking that for me.

Music: “Inspiration” by Jonathan Dana