Rekha Murthy
 Arlington, MA, USA
rmurthy[at]alum[dot]mit[dot]edu


Summarized Self-Description

I began my career as a Web site producer for private clients and later for NPR Online during the mid- to late-1990s. In 2000, I joined NPR's daily newsmagazine, "All Things Considered," as a .

I graduated from MIT's Comparative Media Studies Masters program in 2005. My research focused on street media in urban spaces, urban annotation practices, and the supporting telecommunications and social networking technologies. But that's just the half of it. Please see selected projects below.

Upon graduation, I freelanced as a radio producer at NPR's "Day to Day," "The World" by BBC/WGBH/PRI, and NPR's "On Point." At "On Point," I produced a one-hour conversation about the Geospatial Web (link or big download). Then, I spent a few years as an information architect and interaction designer for Web and mobile applications.

Now, I'm Director of Projects + Partnerships for Public Radio Exchange (PRX), where I explore new ways to distribute public radio content. Rather fitting, isn't it?

I held out for a while, but then I gave in and blogged. Maybe I'll resume again some day. Meantime, check me out on Delicious / Twitter / FriendFeed.


Resume

under reconstruction

Listen to NPR pieces
Read print publications


 Media of the Moment

I am an avid curator of all sorts of media objects. Please do pay them a visit.

Selected Projects

Street Media: The Thesis
A fun and fulfilling project for which I spent a lot of time on city streets with a camera. Read the abstract or download the entire thing in two parts: text | images
(I remained rather faithful to the proposal.)
abstract and proposal are HTML; thesis is in .pdfs (allow extra download time)


Street Media: Me on Google Video
A couple of MIT students sit me down and make me talk about graffiti as part of the Comparative Media Studies New Media Literacies project.
an online video with some of my very own photographic stills


Flâneurs Savants
What a walking tour of a Parisian neighborhood might look like.
a page of history and concept


Story Space
An attempt to use 20th-century French theory to show that location-aware communications technologies could enhance social and political engagement.
a First Monday special issue article


Rethinking Communications in Cambridge, MA
A paradigm shift you didn't know you needed.
in basic HTML with a subdued palette


Making Life Easier
In observance of World Usability Day (yes, such a thing exists), I review the Boston-area's new system for collecting public transport fares.
a detailed blog post with photographs


Central Square, Cambridge
One paper is a selective history and another looks at recent streetscape renovations.
in .pdf format with pictures


Dystopia
A winning design for a Sony Pictures Imageworks/MIT video game competition.
a video download of our team in action


Terrascope Radio
I helped teach radio production to MIT freshmen who are part of the Terrascope learning community.
a link to the Terrascope Web site


Metamedia
I contributed content and ideas to an educational tool for annotating and sharing media.
a Web site with a tour


Dressing Windows
A visual merchandiser for H&M's downtown Boston store tells me how she does it.
a multimedia essay


(Not for Broadcast) ;-)
"Frankenstein" and Galatea 2.2 as Cautionary Tales for Men Considering (Pro)creation.
this is a rather large mp3 download, but I daresay it's worth it