E D U C A T I O N

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA
Ph.D., Media Arts and Sciences — Expected July 2025
Thesis: Designing the CthulhuCosmos: Toward a Speculative Cosmo-politics of Indigenous Epistemology in Space
Advisor: Dr. Danielle Wood
Committee: Dr. Amareswar Galla, Zach Lieberman

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA
M.S., Media Arts and Sciences — 2020
Thesis: SCRIBE: Crowdsourcing Indigenous Knowledge
Advisor: Dr. Danielle Wood
Committee: Dr. Amareswar Galla, Zach Lieberman

Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA
M.Des., Critical Conservation — 2018
Thesis: Sylvan Synesthesia: Ritual as a Repository for Ecological Memory
Advisor: Susan Snyder
Committee: George Thomas

Jnanapravaha, Mumbai, India
Postgraduate Diploma in Indian Aesthetics — 2024

International Institute for the Inclusive Museum, Vietnam & Cambodia
Field School in Sustainable Heritage Development — 2015

Young India Fellowship, Ashoka University, New Delhi
Postgraduate Diploma in Liberal Arts — 2014

National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, India
B.Des., Exhibition and Spatial Design — 2011

A W A R D S & F E L L O W S H I P S

Morningside Design Fellow, 2023–2024
Morningside Project Grant, 2023
Elements Fellowship, 2020–2023
Summer Study Fellowship , Centre for International Studies, MIT 2022
MIT Student Conference Award
Priscilla King Gray Public Service Grants, 2019–2021 (three-time recipient)
Kelly Douglas Research and Teaching Grant 2019
Space Exploration Initiative Grant, 2019
Plus Minus Fellowship, 2019
MISTI Global Seed Fund, 2018
Arts at MIT Grant, 2018
Human Rights Fellowship, MIT, 2018
Young Space Leaders Award, International Astronautical Congress
MDes Project Research Award, 2018
Finalist, President’s Innovation Challenge | Venture Incubation Program, Harvard University, 2018
UNEP, Young Champions of the Earth, finalist 2018
David Rockefeller Research Grant, 2017
Heffernan Research Award, 2017
Student Conference Forum Award, 2017
Mexican Cities Initiative Fellowship, 2017
Harvard Asia Center Research Grant, 2017
Mittal Institute Summer Research Grant, 2017
Runner-up: Seed for Change Award, 2017
Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, 2016–2018
Rashtrapati Bhavan (President's Scholars) Fellowship, 2015
Sean Heffernan Fellowship, 2013–2014

R E S E A R CH E X P E R I E N C E

MIT Media Lab, Space Enabled Group
Research Assistant — Aug 2018–Present
Lead researcher on projects engaging epistemic justice in extraterrestrial exploration. Projects include Myths of the Cosmos (an archive of Indigenous cosmologies), Bloom Skin (a speculative space suit for seed dispersal in microgravity), and SCRIBE (a platform for mapping oral ecological knowledge).

Harvard Graduate School of Design, Critical Conservation Lab
Research Assistant — Aug 2017–May 2018
Contributed to the development of conservation frameworks based in non-dualistic ontologies, exploring ritual practices as ecological technologies.

T E A C H I N G E X P E R I E N C E

Ancient Future Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab — 2019–2022
Co-instructor alongside Dr. David Kong and Dr. Andre Uhl. This interdisciplinary course explored the intersection of scientific practice and ancestral wisdom, rethinking ethics through spiritual, cultural, and ecological lenses. Emphasized co-learning, peer-to-peer pedagogy, and intercultural dialogue to reimagine the ethical foundations of science and design in an era of planetary complexity.

Transformative Leadership and Spiritual Practice: Religions and the Practice of Peace
Harvard Divinity School — 2017–2018
Course co-facilitator with Dr. Elizabeth Lee Hood and Dr. Andre Uhl. Focused on the embedded wisdom in religious traditions as frameworks for peacebuilding and leadership. Designed participatory exercises in contemplative practice, community dialogue, and ethical reflection to nurture spiritual literacy and civic responsibility.

HIS‑04479,  Power & Place: Culture and Conflict in the Built Environment
Harvard Graduate School of Design — Spring 2018
Teaching Assistant for graduate seminar taught by Susan Snyder and George Thomas. The course examined how histories of race, empire, and inequality shape the built environment, with case studies in contested urban sites. Responsibilities included facilitating seminars, leading reading discussions, and guiding student research projects.

GSD‑3333,  Culture, Conservation, and Design
Harvard Graduate School of Design — Fall 2017
Teaching Assistant for graduate proseminar led by Susan Snyder and George Thomas. The course explored the relationship between cultural practices and design within conservation frameworks. Supported lectures, conducted review sessions, and advised students on place-based research and speculative conservation strategies.

LDAR 226G‑01, Landscape Research, Theory and Design
Rhode Island School of Design -Spring 2024
Invited guest speaker for the graduate course taught by Lili Hermann and Larissa Belcic. Contributed to a session on Indigenous cosmologies, ecological imaginaries, and speculative methodologies in landscape design. Presented work on ritual technologies and the politics of representation in design research.

Environment and Society
Ashoka University — 2022
Invited guest speaker for a course exploring environmental ethics, Indigenous ecological knowledge, and planetary futures. Shared insights from long-term fieldwork and speculative design research, foregrounding non-Western frameworks of environmental stewardship.

Conservation and Critical Heritage Practices
National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad — 2021
Invited guest speaker for a course on contemporary conservation methods. Delivered a lecture on critical conservation, non-dualistic ontologies, and the role of ritual as ecological memory within cultural landscapes.

R E S I D E NC I E S A N D R E S E A R C H P R O J E C T S

Working Group on Pluralistic Governance and International Outer Space Law, International Institute of Space Law (IISL) — Ongoing

Member and expert on Indigenous cosmology. Collaborating with international scholars and policymakers to envision inclusive legal frameworks for space governance grounded in plural epistemologies

Extended Intelligence, IEEE — 2020–Present

Core member advancing an international standard for the implementation and governance of AI systems aligned with Rights of Nature principles. Contributes to the development of ethical frameworks that recognize non-human intelligences and ecological systems as legitimate agents in AI governance discourse.

Lawaya Artist Residency, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile — 2024
Collaborative residency with the Likanantay community to co-create the world’s first Indigenous space ritual through a high-altitude balloon launch. Engaged astronomy, landscape, and ancestral ceremony as living instruments of cosmopolitical inscription and self-introduction to the cosmos.

TTT BioFeral Labs, Crete — 2024
Residency exploring techno-animist responses to reproductive technologies. Developed The Testosterone Project, a feminist biopolitical inquiry into hormone ecologies, agency, and performativity in non-linear bodies.

Lab Verde, Amazon Rainforest — 2024
Participated in Speculative Ecologies in the Amazon, engaging multispecies entanglements and climate imaginaries. Developed site-specific research into the sonic, microbial, and cosmological registers of the rainforest as a sentient archive.

Mars Desert Research Station, Utah — 2024
Artist-in-residence developing ritual protocols for extraterrestrial terrains. Investigated sacrality, kinship, and bodily inscription within the symbolic void of Mars analog landscapes.

Mars College AI Residency — 2024
Speculative design fellowship exploring embodied intelligences, animist machinic cognition, and planetary-scale computation as ecological and relational phenomena.

Studio Verde & Maasai Community (Neti Apa Project), Kenya — 2024
Residency focused on the preservation of disappearing oral traditions through storytelling, film, and participatory ethnography. Worked closely with elders and women’s circles to co-create audiovisual mythologies rooted in land, gender, and interspecies memory.

Desecrated Lands: Space Analog Grounding — 2023
Initiated a series of retrospective space analog studies in post-human geographies of trauma and contamination—Chernobyl, Semipalatinsk, Pokhran, the Aral Sea. The project critically interrogates conservation and planetary ethics amidst the ruins of techno-modernity.

Open Lab: Home Sprints, Google Arts & Culture × MIT Media Lab — June 2020

Participated in a global virtual hackathon during COVID-19, pairing 14 artist-led teams with technologists across five continents Co-developed a “shared dreaming” platform as an affective infrastructure for collective care and digital dreaming. Collaborated with Zach Lieberman, Aruna Sankaranarayanan, Eyal Perry, and others

Myths of the Cosmos — 2018–Ongoing
Longitudinal fieldwork across Atacama, Meghalaya, BR Hills, Mangalore, Kenya, Mexico, Manaus, Bhutan, Bali, and Haiti. Documents Indigenous star epistemologies and cosmograms to counter the universalist narratives in space exploration.

Mothertongues — 2023–Ongoing
Research on cosmological and linguistic approaches to the void in Indigenous and scientific thought. Draws on dark matter, ritual technologies, and quantum ethics to propose decolonial engagements with the unknown.

Analog Mars Habitation, Ladakh — 2021
Collaborative analog mission with Changpa nomads and astrobiologists to imagine dwelling practices on Mars rooted in mobility, subsistence, and sacred geography.

Techno-Indigenous Gathering, Emerson Collective — 2020

Curated and participated in an experimental convergence of Indigenous knowledge holders and technologists to collaboratively address issues of land sovereignty, climate resilience, and epistemic justice. Framed technology as a relational instrument shaped by ethics, story, and place, rather than as an extractive tool.

SCRIBE: Crowdsourcing Indigenous Knowledge — 2018–2020
Developed a digital platform integrating oral ecological memory with satellite data and conservation science. Enacted epistemic pluralism in the mapping and stewardship of endangered ecosystems.

Sylvan Synesthesia — 2018
Researched ritual as a repository for ecological intelligence in sacred groves and transitional landscapes. Developed a critical conservation framework grounded in non-dualist ontologies of care.

The Avocado, the Butterfly, and La Bestia — 2018
Mapped the entangled migrations of species, humans, and geopolitical boundaries through the Americas. Traced the routes of avocados, monarch butterflies, and human migrants to uncover the colonial cartographies of consumption and movement.

P U B L I C A T I O N S

Forthcoming

• Muniyappa, Prathima. “Analog Exploration for Post-Disaster Ecologies.” In Feral Labs Node Book #3: Fa Fa Futures (forthcoming).

Peer-Reviewed Articles (under review)

• Muniyappa, Prathima. “Threshold Craft: Designing Cosmopolitics in Space Exploration.” Under review at Environmental Humanities.

• Muniyappa, Prathima. “Rituals of Refusal: Indigenous Cosmologies in the Age of Space Capitalism.” Under review at Cultural Anthropology.

Essays (in preparation)

• Muniyappa, Prathima. “Bloom Skin: Ritual Suits and Seed Dispersal in Zero Gravity.” In preparation for submission to e-flux journal.

• Muniyappa, Prathima. “Darkness as Presence: Indigenous Cosmologies and the Ethics of the Void.” In preparation for submission to Society and Space.

• Muniyappa, Prathima. “Terraforming as Ceremony: Indigenous Protocols and Space Futures.” In preparation for submission to Public Culture.

Peer-Reviewed & Curated Volumes

Designing the Pluriverse, in A Nomadic Book, OHT, 2025
Of Moonshots and Starshots, in Hurry Up We Are Dreaming, 2024
Opportunities to Pursue Liberatory, Anticolonial, and Antiracist Designs for Human Societies Beyond Earth, 2023
Myths of the Cosmos, in Into the Anthropocosmos: A Whole Space Catalog, MIT Press, 2022
Space Between Space, Forecast Journal: Issue 9 – Sustainability, 2021
Just Space and Land, UD|ID Journal, 2017
Nourishing Nostalgia: Retrofitting Heritage Sites with Urban Agriculture, Platform 10, 2016
When is Conservation Maladaptive? Investigating Sacred Groves as Alternative Conservation Methodologies with the Potential for Adaptive Management and Corridor Ecology, Platform 10, 2016

Conference Proceedings

The World Tree as Space Ship: Khasi Cosmopoetics, International Astronautical Congress, 2020
Myths of the Cosmos: Alternative Indigenous Narratives for Space Exploration, International Astronautical Congress, 2019
A Bridge, A Wormhole, A Palimpsest: Meditations on the Future of Looking Backward, International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, 2015 — Presented at the 7th Annual Inclusive Museum Conference

Theses

Designing the CthulhuCosmos: Toward a Speculative Cosmo-politics of Indigenous Epistemology in Space, PhD Dissertation, MIT Media Lab, 2025
SCRIBE: Crowdsourcing Indigenous Knowledge, SM Thesis, MIT Media Lab, 2020
Sylvan Synesthesia: Ritual as Repository of Ecological Memory, MDes Thesis, Harvard GSD, 2018

Editorial, Interviews & Manifestos

Achronology, Critical Conservation Journal, 2018 (Editor)
Non-Dual Liminal: A Manifesto for a Synthetic Conservation, 2018
Power and Place: Culture & Conflict in the Built Environment, Co-Editor with Susan Snyder & George Thomas, 2018
Sylvan Thinking: An Interview with Eduardo Kohn, Harvard Design Magazine, 2018
Critique and Praxis: An Interview with David Lowenthal, Harvard Design Magazine, 2018
Receding Horizons: Historic Preservation in Outer Space, Presented at ICOMOS General Assembly, 2017

F E A T U R E D

Feeling Our Way — Podcast by Google Empathy Lab Founder Danielle Krettek Cobb (Launch: Jan 2023)
Featuring global creative voices addressing the climate crisis with spiritual emphasis, including Steven Spielberg and Anne Lamott

The Merging of Technology and Spirituality — Creative Review
Profiles emerging tech pioneers respectfully building futures inspired by ancestral wisdoms.
Read article

“Feminist Astropolitics. Interview with Prathima Muniyappa” — The Gender Security Project, December 2023

In the Final Frontier, How Should We Behave? — The Christian Science Monitor
A reflection on ethical conduct in space exploration.
Read article

Swiss Touch in Space Exploration — Public Conference (2019)
With Didier Queloz (Nobel Laureate), George Ricker (MIT), Willy Benz (University of Bern), Kim Arcand (NASA), Prathima Muniyappa (MIT Media Lab), and Kate Greene (NASA-funded poet-astronaut).

Taproot: Stories of Nature and Restoration — The Constellation Project, Harvard Divinity School
Collaborative initiative between the Planetary Health Alliance and Harvard Divinity, led by Dr. Sam Myers and Terry Tempest Williams, integrating science, faith, Indigenous knowledge, and the arts.

Humans, Robots, Space & the Future of Connectedness — California Institute of Technology, Sept 1–2, 2021
An artist-scientist collaboration exploring human-machine-cosmos relationships. Interprets NASA science data through sensory formats to deepen planetary empathy.

These 12 Women Are Crusaders of Change in the Climate Crisis — Vogue India
Featured alongside Dia Mirza, Sunita Narain, and Krithi Karanth.
Read article

S E L E C T E D T A L K S & L E A D E R S H I P

Chair, UN Science Summit 2025 — Towards a Multispecies Jurisprudence in Outer Space. Led a transdisciplinary dialogue exploring frameworks for multispecies rights, kincentric legal models, and planetary personhood. Proposed pathways for aligning outer space governance with Earth jurisprudence and Rights of Nature principles
Speaker, Media Lab Member’s Week on Wisdom 2025 – MIT
Presented speculative design projects and research on space ethics and Indigenous knowledge systems.
Invited Presenter, SIGGRAPH 2025
Delivered talks on planetary ethics, immersive futures, and the politics of visual storytelling.
Invited Speaker, On the Seam, Futress – Radical Futures for Design, University of Vienna
Spoke on Indigenous feminist design, speculative conservation, and future-making through situated knowledges.
Nairobi Design Week, Kenya — 2024
Presented the project Biomatter Uprising, a speculative exploration of Indigenous seed cosmologies, insurgent ecologies, and planetary futures. The work foregrounds seeds as sentient archives of resistance, proposing spaceflight as a site for multispecies survival and sovereignty.
Chair, UN Science Summit 2024 — Space Ontologies: Cosmopolitical Frameworks for Plural Futures
Convened international scholars and policy leaders to reimagine relational, non-extractive space governance frameworks grounded in Indigenous cosmologies and speculative design.
Panelist, Beyond the Cradle – MIT Media Lab (2019, 2021, 2022)
Invited Speaker, Humans, Robots, Space & the Future of Connectedness – Caltech, Sept 2021
Invited Speaker, Indigenous Digital and Media Delegation “Indigenous Knowledge, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Worlds, 2020, MIT
Featured Speaker, Community Global BioSummit – 2019
Swiss Touch in Space Exploration – Geneva, 2019
Dialogue with Nobel Laureate Didier Queloz and NASA visualization leads on the importance of epistemic plurality in space science.
Taproot: Stories of Nature and Restoration – Harvard Divinity School & Planetary Health Alliance
Participated in The Constellation Project with Terry Tempest Williams to imagine spiritual-scientific ecosystems for planetary future-making.
Featured Guest, Feeling Our Way Podcast – Google Empathy Lab, 2023
Appeared alongside Steven Spielberg and Anne Lamott to reflect on spiritual creativity and climate resilience.
Panelist, Techno‑Indigenous – Emerson Collective, 2022
Brought together Indigenous leaders and technologists to design decolonial tools of survival and sovereignty.
Invited Artist-Scholar, Art with Charlie / Art with Intent
Shared interdisciplinary work on ritual ecologies, dark matter poetics, and cosmopolitical aesthetics.
Speaker, PAWA Life 2020
Joined musician Sting and other speakers in a cross-disciplinary dialogue on creativity, climate, and consciousness.
Invited Speaker, 6th Biennial Design Science Symposium: Inclusive Narratives from Nature — RISD, Sept 2019 “Sylvan Synesthesia: A Non‑Dualistic Agenda for Design”, a critical exploration of ritual aesthetics and ecological memory

A F F L I A T I O N S

Council of Extended Intelligence (IEEE + MIT) — Core Working Group

Aurelia Institute (formerly Space Exploration Initiative, MIT Media Lab) — Member

Ocean Exploration Initiative, MIT Media Lab — Collaborator

Sustainable Peace Initiative, One Harvard Initiative, Harvard Divinity School — Fellow

Planetary Health Alliance, Harvard Medical School — Member

Analog Earth and Space Exploration, Department of Astrobiology, Amity University — Research Collaborator

International Institute of the Inclusive Museum — Member

The Shillim Institute — Artist and Conservationist

International Institute of Space Law (IISL) — Working Group on Pluralistic Governance and International Outer Space Law, Founding Member & Expert on Indigenous Cosmology

American Academy of Religion — Member

Spaceport SARABHAI (S2), India’s First Space Think Tank — Contributing Member

C O N S E R V AT I O N

The Shillim Foundation | USA, India | 2017
Led an experiential gathering of scientists artists and landscape practitioners to foster conservation as radical sympoiesis in collaboration with ATREE in the Western Ghats, India.

World Bank | India Abha Narain Lambah Associates | 2012–2016
Museum Designer/ Conservation Architect.
Led the Museum design team. Engaged in project development from conceptual design to project management and construction supervision activities for projects amounting to approx 900,000 USD

Museums

Nehru Memorial Museum | New Delhi
Chhatrapati Shivaji Vastu Sangrahalaya | Mumbai
Government Museum, Bharatpur | Rajasthan
Red Fort Site Museum | New Delhi
Government Museum, Bangalore | Karnataka
Bank Of India Museum | Mumbai
Ekambareshwar Temple Museum | Kanchipuram

Monuments

Ajanta and Ellora Complex-UNESCO World Heritage Site
Chittorgarh Fort | Madhya Pradesh UNESCO World Heritage Site
Bombay High Court | Mumbai
Sheesh Mahal & Museum, Patiala | Punjab
Raj Bhavan (Governor’s Mansion) | Kolkata
Royal Opera House | Mumbai

Historic Districts

City Anchor | Kanchipuram
Monitored and evaluated infrastructure projects and their impact on heritage sites, mapped heritage zoning violations and proposed alternative measures, prepared the city level plan for Kanchipuram in a three member team

UNESCO Consultant, Angkor Vat Complex | Cambodia | 2012 UNESCO World Heritage Site
Restoration of the Ta Phrom Temple complex

Ministry Of Culture, Govt Of India | Delhi | 2011
Consultant | A World Heritage Site | $ 5 M
Developed The Museum’s Curation And The Interpretation Strategy For A 400 Acre Interpretation Centre In The Cultural Landscape Of The World Heritage Site In Hampi.

World Bank, Consultant, Orissa Rural Livelihoods Project | Delhi | 2011
Conducted ethnographic research on Indigenous Knowledge in Agriculture, hand-looms and fisheries and developed a livelihoods project that skilled 600 families.

Heritage Consultant, National Institute of Design | Taj Mahal | 2011 UNESCO World Heritage Site
Restoration and Urban Revitalisation of the Tajganj precinct