SEED Grant Research Projects
Soft: a Prototype for Responsive Environments & Neurodivergence
Project Soft is a spatial “wearable”; an encapsulated, safe space with an adaptive interior environment where sound and light experience occurs via a full-body approach. Soft employs emerging strategies that visualize relationships between the human body, mind states, and spatial aspects, including interactive sonification based on joint movement analysis and the translation of respiratory rates or emotional states to dynamic light projections. It examines how modifying sensory aspects of an interior environment —focusing on the combined effects of sound and light— can affect an individual’s physiological and psychological factors. In combining science, technology, and design expertise with the lived experience of neurodivergent advocates, Soft investigates the challenges stressful environments present to neurodivergent individuals and the healing opportunities of sensory multimodal and responsive spaces for all.
Project Collaborators
- Loukia Tsafoulia, MSAAD
Assistant Professor, Architecture & Interior Design
Loukia.Tsafoulia@jefferson.edu - Severino Alfonso, MSAAD
Assistant Professor
Interior Design & Interior Architecture
Severino.Alfonso@jefferson.edu - Wendy J. Ross, MD
Developmental and behavioral pediatrician,
Director of the Center for Autism and Neurodiversity,
Jefferson Health
Wendy.Ross@jefferson.edu - Jane Tobias, DNP, CPNP-PC
Assistant Professor, Jefferson College of Nursing,
Associate Director of Nursing Research,
Jefferson Center for Injury Research and Prevention - Kimberly Mollo, BFA, OTD, OTR/L
Associate Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy,
Jefferson College of Rehabilitation Sciences - Alessandro Napoli
Lead Research and Development engineer involved in a Brain Computer Interface for Stroke Clinical Trial at Thomas Jefferson University. - Iyad Obeid
Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Bioengineering
Temple University