Recruit the CMS class of 2014

Download the CMS 2014 Resume Book (PDF).

Denise Cheng is a researcher and program designer who focuses on the future of work. At MIT, she explored how to configure a worker support infrastructure around people who earn income through Etsy, Airbnb, TaskRabbit, UberX and other peer-to-peer marketplaces. She has built strong relationships across the space with city governments, foundations, investors, startups, policy analysts and labor advocacy organizations. As a a former Peace Corps volunteer, the project lead of a well-reputed citizen journalism outlet, a fellow with CUNY J-School, and many other stints on the way to MIT, her roots are in the future of news, media/digital literacy, media justice, and community building.

Denise holds a B.Phil in Cultural and Participatory Journalism from Miami University of Ohio and an M.S. in Comparative Media Studies from MIT. She is affiliated with the MIT Center for Civic Media and MacroConnections at Media Lab. Like a moth to a flame, she is drawn to DIY media, neighborhoods, design of all types and creating frameworks—media expression or fulfilling work—that enable people to pursue what they find meaningful.

Rodrigo Davies is a civic technologist and researcher who designs, builds and analyzes tools to help communities and governments collaborate for social good. He will be joining Stanford as a doctoral student in Fall 2014.

As part of his research at MIT, Rodrigo founded the Civic Crowdfunding Research Project, a platform for social research on crowdfunding, and co-leads Build Peace, a conference that brings together peacebuilding practitioners and technologists to think about new ways to resolve conflict and rebuild communities.

He has served as an adviser, product manager and practitioner on civic projects with the Mayoral offices of San Francisco and Boston, the United Nations Development Program and the UK-based crowdfunding platform Spacehive. Rodrigo has been invited to speak about civic technology, design and crowdfunding by SXSW Interactive (Austin, TX), Personal Democracy Forum (NYC), the Library of Congress and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Erica Deahl is a designer and researcher creating media for education and social impact. She co-leads the City Digits project at MIT’s Civic Data Design Lab, developing classroom curricula and building geo-spatial tools to help high school students conduct data-driven urban investigations. Erica is currently an S.M. candidate in the Comparative Media Studies program, where her research focuses on using digital media in K-12 public education to support technological literacies and promote civic engagement. Previously she was a senior designer at 2×4 in New York City, where she designed and managed interactive projects for cultural sector clients.

Julie Fischer is a skilled and adaptable researcher with expertise in story development for major media projects. Her credits include researcher for documentary films The Unknown Known (2014) and Tabloid (2010). Her current work focuses on the strategic integration of live video technologies in documentary media, and the potentials of WebRTC to transform interactive storytelling. She’s a research assistant at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, a group dedicated to building the field of interactive documentary.

During his master’s program, Alexandre Gonçalves investigated recent controversies in Brazil across both traditional and independent media that have led to social and legal changes. He is interested in issues such as agenda-setting, framing analysis, and public opinion. These interests are fueled by his experience in the media and his knowledge of information technology – especially databases and natural language processing.

He also worked as a reporter at the Brazilian daily newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, where he covered biotechnology and science policy.

Before becoming a journalist, he had worked as an information architect at many software companies.

Jason Lipshin is an interaction designer and user experience researcher focused on mobiles and ubiquitous computing. He is a graduate student in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program and has worked with both the MIT Imagination, Computation, and Expression Lab and the MIT Mobile Experience Lab. Through his work with the Mobile Experience Lab, Jason has helped develop new concepts and prototypes for clients including Marriott Hotels, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, and RAI – Italy’s national broadcasting company. This summer, he will be working for Disney Interactive Group in Tokyo.

Eduardo Marisca graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy from the Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) in Lima, where he began doing research and teaching on subjects related to the philosophy of technology and media, and the social impact of new technologies. He is currently researching the emergence of the video game industry in Peru and its potential as a creative industry, and is also working as a research assistant at The Education Arcade.

Before coming to MIT he worked at Ashoka, an international organization sourcing and supporting social innovators around the world, localizing online tools for social innovation for the Latin American market. As part of the Changemakers.com technology team, he worked out of Ashoka offices in both Lima, Peru and Buenos Aires, Argentina. He also started and leads the Lima Videogame Laboratory, a research initiative on videogames and gaming culture in the Peruvian and Latin American context.

Lingyuxiu Zhong is a digital media studies researcher at MIT. She previously received a B.A. degree in History from Yale University, where she studied how collective memories of the past can impact a society’s identity formation process. At MIT she focuses on digital image sharing and collection practices and their cultural and commercial implications. She also works at the MIT Education Arcade and assists with the design and development of educational platforms. She is currently co-teaching a pilot class that tries to improve the Massive Open Online Course model and make it more interactive.