By Matilda Bathurst

To innovate as a technologist, you need to be a polyglot—fluent in multiple languages of problem-solving, able to synthesize ideas across domains, reframing puzzles to visualize different outcomes, and revealing the questions that have yet to be asked.

For Rebecca Lin—a graduate research assistant at the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the Future Sketches group at the MIT Media Lab, and a 2025 Design Fellow at the MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MAD)—one of those languages is art.

“I develop mathematical abstractions and computational tools that facilitate new approaches to art, design, and fabrication,” she explains. “By transforming abstract concepts into visual and material systems—mathematical graphs into geometric patterns, which can then be articulated through code and craft—it’s possible to expand our vocabularies for reasoning and making.”

As part of a research collaboration with Craig S. Kaplan, professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, Lin has developed an open source encoding-decoding framework that represents Islamic ornamental geometric patterns in the form of triangulated graphs. These graphs can then be automatically re-translated into constellation patterns calibrated to varying degrees of complexity.

Lin has used the patterns generated by her research to create physical works of art, experimenting with media including collage, laser engraving, layered plywood reliefs, fabric sculptures, 3D-printed studies, and animated light pieces. These artworks are presented in the exhibition Encoding-Decoding Constellations at the MIT Wiesner Student Art Gallery, and Lin’s guiding premise can serve as a key for innovators of all kinds: “our choice of representation shapes what we can create.”