Joseph Paradiso directs the Responsive Environments group, which explores how sensor networks augment and mediate human experience, interaction, and perception. 

After two years developing precision drift chambers at the Lab for High Energy Physics at ETH in Zurich, he joined the Draper Laboratory, where his research encompassed spacecraft control systems, image processing algorithms, underwater sonar, and precision alignment sensors for large high-energy physics detectors. He joined the Media Lab in 1994, where his current research interests include wireless sensing systems, wearable and body sensor networks, sensor systems for built and natural environments, energy harvesting and power management for embedded sensors, ubiquitous/pervasive computing and the Internet of Things, human-computer interfaces, space-based systems, and interactive music/media. He has written over 350 publications and frequently lectures in these areas. In his spare time, he enjoys designing/building electronic music synthesizers, composing electronic soundscapes, and seeking out edgy and unusual music while traveling the world.

After receiving a BS in electrical engineering and physics summa cum laude from Tufts University while working on precision inertial guidance systems at Draper Lab, Paradiso became a K.T. Compton fellow at the Lab for Nuclear Science at MIT, receiving his PhD in physics there for research conducted with Prof. S.C.C. Ting’s group at CERN in Geneva.