Katarina Richter-Lunn is an architectural designer, researcher, and first year doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her research, found at the intersection of design, psychology, and neuroscience, aims to promote well-being through our environment.

By translating methods of traditional behavioral therapy, her research seeks to demonstrate how human, machine, and spatial interactions can be leveraged via AI algorithms to propose more seamless and intuitive solutions to addressing mental health. As part of this work, she explores how neurological and physiological cues can give insight to one’s behavior, and in turn support cognitive processes through the lens of materiality, computational design, affective computing, and social robotics.

Alongside her doctoral studies at Harvard, Katarina is a research assistant with the Materials Processes and Systems Group (MaP+S) at the GSD, as well as a member of the Aizenberg Lab at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Katarina holds a Master in Design Technology (M.Des.) from Harvard GSD and a Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, with a minor in Sustainable Environments. She has worked at leading architecture firms including Snøhetta, Arup, IwamottoScott, and most recently Gehry Partners, where she worked as a project designer.