Nitin Sawhney

Nitin Sawhney, Ph.D. is a Research Affiliate with the MIT Visual Arts Program, Dept. of Architecture and a Research Fellow with the Jerusalem 2050 Project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Nitin was born in New Delhi, India and lived in the Middle East for over 12 years. Nitin received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from MIT, as well as M.S. and B.E. degrees from Georgia Tech. He has conducted research on interactive video technology, open design collaboration, mobile and wearable computing, speech interfaces and auditory perception at the MIT Media Lab, Mitsubishi Electric Research, Georgia Tech’s GVU Center, and Fuji-Xerox Palo-Alto Labs. Nitin’s current focus is on human rights advocacy through participatory new media technologies. In 2006, he founded Voices Beyond Walls, a nonprofit initiative to conduct digital video and storytelling workshops with youth in refugee camps in the West Bank. He co-founded and organized the annual Boston Palestine Film Festival since 2007. He also established the international Expressions of Nakba Exhibition in 2008. He is currently developing the Media Barrios project to support urban renewal and social empowerment through the media arts, as part of the Just Jerusalem initiative at MIT.