- Opera of the Future
Rebecca Kleinberger is the mother of hedgehogs and a PhD candidate doing research at the MIT Media Lab. Her work mixes science, engineering, design and art to explore ways to craft experiences for self-reflection and human connection. As part of the Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab, she creates unique experiences to help people connect with themselves and with others. She accomplishes this using approaches that include virtual reality, rapid prototyping, deep learning, real-time digital signal processing, lasers, wearable technologies and robotics.
Through 5 years of work on self-reflection technologies, Rebecca has developed unique expertise on the human voice as a means of expression, both to others and within ourselves. Her research spans a wide range of fields, including neurology, human-computer interaction, psychology, cognitive sciences, physics, biology, clinical research, linguistics, communication theory and assistive technologies. This broad range of work has enabled her to create tools and experiences that help people discover more about themselves through the uniqueness and expressivity of their own voice.
Rebecca's work was used for a Financial Times magazine cover and has been shown at a wide range of events and venues including, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, Le Laboratoire in Paris, Siggraph Art exhibition in Los Angeles, “Hacking Consciousness” at Harvard divinity school, and EMF camp in the UK. She has collaborated with Microsoft Research UK and the Google Magenta team and has presented her research at a host of international conferences. Working with Tod Machover’s team, her research has also been used outside of the MIT Media Labs as part of live shows and novel esthetic experiences at Maison Symphonique de Montreal, the Luzern Festival in Switzerland, and the Winspear Opera House in Dallas.
Rebecca graduated from École National des Arts et Métiers in Paris with a Masters of Mechanical Engineering, and from University College London with a Master of Research in Virtual Environments, Imaging and Visualization. She is home-schooled in the art of raising hedgehogs.