JudithDonath

From Identity Mashup

Judith Donath is an Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab, where she directs the Sociable Media research group. Her work focuses on the social side of computing, synthesizing knowledge from fields such as graphic design, urban studies and cognitive science to build innovative interfaces for online communities and virtual identities. She is known internationally for pioneering research in social visualization, interface design, and computer mediated interaction. She created several of the early social applications for the web, including the first postcard service (“The Electric Postcard”), the first interactive juried art show (“Portraits in Cyberspace”) and an early large-scale web event (“A Day in the Life of Cyberspace”). Her work has been exhibited at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston and in several New York galleries; she was the director of “Id/Entity”, an exhibit of collaboratively produced installations examining how science and technology’ are transforming portraiture. Her current research focuses on creating expressive visualizations of social interactions and on building experimental environments that mix real and virtual experiences. She has a book in progress about how we signal identity in both mediated and immediate situations. Professor Donath received her doctoral and master’s degrees in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT, her bachelor’s degree in History from Yale University, and has worked professionally as a designer and builder of educational software and experimental media.