Music has been an integral part of Kimaya (Kimy) Lecamwasam’s life, ever since she found her voice in playing and writing songs during her high school years. As a child, she was shy and struggled with expressing herself. Music became a safe haven and a means for her to communicate and manage her mental health.
Over time, Kimy’s relationship with music piqued her interest in the intricate processes of the human brain. She found herself pondering the power of music and how it could stir emotions and create connections, both in performers and their audiences. This curiosity led her to Wellesley College, where she embarked on a dual study program, delving into Systems and Computational Neuroscience and music. Her first songwriting class there unveiled to her the profound bond between music and emotion and laid the groundwork for her future research.
While in Wellesley, she got her first taste of research by joining MIT’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, where she worked alongside Emery Brown in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Kimy’s research involved analyzing consciousness in anesthetized patients and training brain-computer interface-enabled prosthetics using reinforcement learning. Amidst this intense scientific work, her passion for music never dwindled. In fact, she nurtured a desire to fuse her love for music and neuroscience, leading her to join the MIT Media Lab’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences (MAS) where she found a nurturing environment for both her scientific and artistic pursuits.
Now in her third-year as a PhD student, Kimy is part of the Opera of the Future group at MIT where she is delving into the realm of pharmamusicology. Here, she is experimenting with the use of music as a tool to enhance mental health without the need for drugs. She’s tackling large-scale research that spans affective computing and emotional resonance. Kimy is focused on studying live music experiences and their impact on audiences and performers, she aims to validate music as a clinical therapy, standing on par with traditional psychotherapy and medication.
Her vision of blending music with health is not constrained to the laboratory. Kimy has collaborated with Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute on its Well-being Concerts. She’s also studying the effects of lullaby writing on perinatal health through the North Shore Lullaby Project in Massachusetts. Her collaborations extend overseas, working with Myndstream, PixMob, and Empatica—an MIT Media Lab spinoff.
In tandem with Professor Anna Huang’s Human-AI Resonance Lab, Kimy has embarked on an exploration of the emotional depth of AI-generated music and human-composed pieces. Her objective is to provide emotion-sensitive music generation tools that not just sustain human creativity but also act as ethically sound mental health interventions.
Kimy’s extensive research and unwavering dedication to community-building at MIT has been applauded by her advisor, Professor Tod Machover, who characterizes her as an embodiment of the Media Lab/MAS ethos.
Kimaya Lecamwasam is an exceptional scholar-artist set on a mission to demonstrate how the scientific and artistic realms can coalesce to transform, heal, and inspire the world.
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