Project Affect was a year-long research project investigating the biases associated with consumption and production of visual media. I served as the Principal Investigator for the project, collaborating with researchers from MIT Media Lab, MIT Literature Department, and MIT EECS. Over a 12-month period, I took a series of portraits of individuals from a variety of identity groups, seeking to both engage and invert historical imbalances in agency and narrative between photographer and photographed. I then leveraged a framework of affective computing technologies to analyze how individuals responded to these images, working towards a quantitative approach for discussing implicit biases.
Watch a video below detailing the project, and my broader efforts on MIT campus. The video was produced by Lilly Paquette of MIT School of Engineering as part of the MIT SuperUROP Program.