Meet the 2025 LEGO Papert Fellows
The LEGO Papert Fellowships, endowed by the LEGO Foundation, are intended to honor the legacy and extend the work of Seymour Papert, one of the founding faculty members of the Media Lab and a pioneer in the development and study of new technologies to support playful, creative learning.
“Ever since the founding of the Media Lab 40 years ago, Seymour Papert’s ideas about learning and education have had a deep influence at the Media Lab — and around the world,” says Mitchel Resnick, LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research. “This new group of LEGO Papert Fellows follow in Seymour’s tradition, innovating at the intersection of technology, learning, and play.”
About the 2025 Fellows
Lancelot Blanchard (Responsive Environments)
Lancelot Blanchard is a musician, engineer, and AI researcher pursuing a PhD at MIT Media Lab’s Responsive Environments group. His research explores the potential for generative AI systems to enhance the creative processes of musicians, with a special focus on live performances. Lancelot has collaborated with multiple artists to create innovative tools for real-time AI-augmented music making.
Lancelot holds a Master’s of Research in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and a Master’s of Engineering in Computing from Imperial College London, as well as a degree in classical piano from the Conservatory of Rennes, France.
Karishma Chadha (Lifelong Kindergarten)
Karishma Chadha is a PhD student in the Lifelong Kindergarten group. She is passionate about designing welcoming, joyful, and playful creative learning tools and experiences that foster young people’s creative expression and sense of belonging in computing.
Karishma’s work focuses on themes of personal identity, cultural expression, storytelling, designing for belonging, cultivating care, and supporting critical reflection and engagement with technology.
In her recent research Karishma has been exploring designing new experiences with Generative AI that nurture young people as creators. Her Imagine Yourself project explores designing a new image generation experience within Scratch to foster personal representation and storytelling.
Hye Jun Youn (Tangible Media)
Hye Jun Youn is currently a research assistant in the Tangible Media group. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, she is a multidisciplinary designer and researcher whose work lies at the intersection of art, material science, and technology. Her research primarily explores how novel, shape-morphing materials can transform humans’ interactions with tangible interfaces. By democratizing access to emerging technologies, she aims to empower students, artists, and experimenters with new methods of creation and expression.
Prior to joining the Media Lab, she was a research affiliate at the Harvard SEAS Material Scienceand the Harvard GSD MaP+S Lab.
Hye Jun is also the co-founder of PneuBots, which is backed by Harvard Innovation Labs and Harvard Capital Partners. Her toolkit has been used in courses and workshops she taught on Inflatable Materials at Harvard GSD and the Rhode Island School of Design. She received the Dean’s Merit Scholarship for a Master’s in Design Studies with a concentration in Mediums from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, an MFA from RISD, and a B.S. in Psychology from New York University.
Hye Jun is a recipient of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia award in Industry, Manufacturing & Energy, as well as the 2021 & 2022 Red Dot, 2021 iF Design, 2022 Core77 Professional Winner, 2021 & 2023 IDA, and 2021 & 2022 A’Design awards. Her work has been published and exhibited at the CHI and TEI conferences.
Originally published at https://www.media.mit.edu.
