Progress, Potential, and Possibilities Podcast / Show Melodie Yashar - Co-Founder of Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch+)
Today we’re joined by Melodie Yashar - Designer, Researcher, Technologist, co-founder of the firm Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch+), Senior Research Associate with San Jose State University Research Foundation at NASA Ames Research Center, and an Associate Researcher within the UC Davis Center for Human/Robotics/Vehicle Integration and Performance (HRVIP). She also teaches undergraduate and graduate design at Art Center College of Design and is a 2019-2020 Future Space Leaders Fellow. Melodie’s current work focuses on the relationship of advanced software & hardware systems for spaceflight and maintains ongoing research interests in the design of augmented environments, human-machine interaction, human performance studies, and space technology development. As an undergraduate Melodie studied at UC Berkeley and at Art Center, and she holds graduate degrees in architecture and human-computer interaction with an emphasis in robotics from Columbia University and Carnegie Mellon University, respectively. She also served as a Visiting Professor at Pratt Institute, as a researcher within Carnegie Mellon’s Morphing Matter Lab and Design Director of Sonic Platforms. Having come from an interdisciplinary background, Melodie appreciates those who see research and design as a confluence of different fields—allowing problem solving to become a more thoroughly collaborative exercise.