Tangible Mind
A civic experiment in emerging technology, design, and social innovation
Co-Founder & Executive Director
2024–2026
Hudson Valley, NY & Cambridge, MA
Partners: Harvard Kennedy School · Shaker Museum · Wildflower Montessori · Starr Library
Mission
Fostering traditional and emerging making practices as vehicles for social innovation and collective transformation.
495
$495K Raised
10
Programs & Convenings
2
Across 2 states
5
Partner Institutions
150+
Collaborators, donors, and friends
Program
Robotics & Architecture Design Charette
The organization is grounded in embodied cognition. The notion is that
...intelligence is not bound to the mind but is shaped by our bodies, environments, and each other.
Why Tangible Mind Exists
After nearly two decades helping businesses adopt emerging technology, I watched generative AI arrive faster than our frameworks for understanding it. The shift was as seismic as, if not more so than, the arrival of the smartphone.
I founded Tangible Mind to make room for a question product roadmaps rarely leave space for: how might the systems that scaffold society work better for the people living inside them?
Bushnell House Retreat
June 2024 Chatham, NY
Designing the Organization
I treated the organization itself as a design problem. Tangible Mind began around kitchen tables and on long walks with collaborators. We prototyped its mission, strategy, and structure before building programs, then invited feedback not just on what we did, but on how we did it.
HKS Strategy Session
June 2024 Chatham, NY
Mt. Lebanon Activations
2024-2026 Mt. Lebanon, NY
“
To truly advocate for a beautifully just world that does not yet exist is to commit an act of radical imagination."
— Professor Cornell William Brooks
Harvard Kennedy School Professor & Program Partner
Living Studio Programs
Living Studios created spaces for making, either as standalone spaces or with partner institutions.
A design studio workshop exploring the intersection of robotics, lightweight architecture, and embodied experience.
A community painting day at SummerFest on the future museum site, with 25+ volunteers and 200+ participants from 12 states.
A Montessori curriculum combining embodied learning, cyanotypes, and collaborative fiber arts. It was developed with Wildflower Montessori, which became a funding partner.
An archival art-making event with Starr Library reclaiming the story of its founder, Mary Regina Miller. It drew 25 participants aged 1 to 89.
Architecting Air
A robotics and inflatable architecture charrette with Che-Wei Wang (CW&T), Riley Studebaker, Claire Moriarty, and Nadav Hendel.
Shaker Museum Mural
"Participatory art and artists can break the passive consumption of information by making audiences active participants in meaning-making." — Kate L.
Wildflower Montessori
"The kids loved creating designs with objects found in nature and watching how the sun changed the color of the paper around the objects." — Mary R., Montessori teacher of 25 years
Locating Invisible Women in History
What came next
The Embodied AI Index
Tangible Mind's work led directly into AI. We developed the first phase of the Embodied AI Index.
It’s a framework that brings embodiment, equity, and cultural context into how AI systems are evaluated and designed, as a public tool for policymakers, educators, designers, and communities.