Today, access to space is no longer limited to the most resilient among us, as more people of varying ages and backgrounds make the trip to low Earth orbit. But could space ever be ‘home’ to more than a select few? How might we design an accessible, human-centered vision of life in space? With a background in physics, architecture, and UX, emerging technologies designer Sana Sharma will describe her efforts to answer these questions through her work at the MIT Space Exploration Initiative and at Aurelia Institute, the space architecture R&D lab she co-founded. She’ll cover what it’s like to conduct ethnographic research with astronauts, and how astronaut insights inform prototyping at both MIT and Aurelia — from the design of modular, reconfigurable space habitats to the experience of ‘breaking bread’ in space. Together, these projects comprise a broader effort to bridge the gap between human-centered design and R&D.
11:45am - 12:15pm: Food and community socializing.
12:15pm - 1:15: Presentation with Q&A. Available hybrid via Zoom.
1:15pm - 2:00pm: Student meeting with speaker, held in CSE2/Gates 371.
Sana Sharma (she/her) is an emerging technologies designer, researcher, and Co-Founder / CDO at Aurelia Institute, a non-profit space architecture R&D lab. At Aurelia, she helms the Institute’s first foray into human-scale space architecture through the development of the TESSERAE exhibition pavilion — a life-size, modular space habitat that engages the space community and the public with what life in space may look like in the future. As a researcher at MIT, Sana leads the Astronaut Ethnography Project, which captures and distills the lived experiences of astronauts and cosmonauts to inform the future of space design, engineering, and education. Her personal art + design work includes Fluid Expressions, a novel art and craft system designed exclusively for use in microgravity. Prior to space, Sana has designed experiences for healthcare, AI, and quantum computing, balancing scientific context and human needs in her work. She holds a B.A. in Architecture from Yale University and an MDes in Design + Technology from Harvard GSD.