Media Lab alum Daniel Pillis (Tangible Media), now an Assistant Professor at Emerson College, was awarded Best Presentation at the Generative AI for Design Workshop 2025 (DESAI25), held at the MIT Media Lab.

The award-winning presentation, titled "Real-Time Stable Diffusion for Virtual Production Workflows," demonstrates Pillis’s collaborative research with Martin Sawtell, from Media Lab member company Dell Technologies, and Media Lab researcher Phillip Cherner. This work sits at the intersection of generative AI and virtual production.

DESAI25 was organized by Media Lab researcher Alaa Algargoosh, now a professor at Virginia Tech, and Media Lab alum Nikhil Singh, now a professor at Dartmouth College, with colleagues from MIT and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The workshop was supported by the MIT Morningside Academy for Design.