|Bio
Alexandra Rieger is a cognitive neuroscientist, accessible designer, mechatronic engineer, instructor, luthier, and multi-instrumentalist helping lead a sensory renaissance in healthcare. Her work pioneers new frontiers at the convergence of neuroscience, medicine, music, engineering, and design, developing novel therapeutic technologies that transform rehabilitation, restore function, and reimagine the future of human health. She is a doctoral candidate at the MIT Media Lab in Tod Machover's Opera of the Future group and a concurrent doctoral researcher and fellow at Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where she works with Professor Mingming Ning, MD, MMSC, Director of the MGH Cardio-Neurology Clinic. Trained across neuroscience, engineering, and design while deeply rooted in a rich folk music tradition, Alexandra brings together rigorous scientific inquiry with artistic practice to create accessible, multisensory approaches to medicine that place human experience at the center of innovation.
She holds a Bachelor of Science from Stanford University, is an alumna of the University of Oxford’s Bing Programme, and earned Master of Science degrees from Dartmouth College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is currently completing her PhD before beginning a postdoctoral fellowship. She has published over 30 peer-reviewed works, taught courses spanning theoretical physics (with Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek), medical pedagogy (with (With Dr. Joe O'Donnell, MD, Senior Advising Dean at Dartmouth Medical School) audiology (with Prof. Michael Casey, Dartmouth College), and experience design (with Prof. Tod Machover, Peabody Winner and MIT Media Lab Academic Head), built more than 100 projects and collaborations, and performed globally as a multi-instrumentalist musician. Her research introduces the emerging field of Omnisensory Medicine, expanding beyond traditional five-sense models to investigate sensory processing through neuroscientific, perceptual, genetic, anthropological, and biological frameworks. This work explores early diagnostics, data-driven interventions, and targeted treatments, including cross-modal cognition, synesthesia, music-based therapeutics, and clinical instrument design. Her engineering practice converges with her work as a luthier as she develops first-of-their-kind MediMusical Instruments for patients.
Currently, Alexandra leads the CHORD Study in collaboration with Dr. MingMing Ning. The CHORD Study is a telehealth clinical trial investigating a novel multisensory music-based neurorehabilitation platform for individuals recovering from stroke. The study examines how synchronized auditory, tactile, visual, and motor engagement can harness principles of neuroplasticity to promote upper-limb recovery while enabling high-quality remote assessment and longitudinal data collection. By leveraging telehealth, CHORD expands data-integrated sensing and access to rehabilitation research for individuals who are immunocompromised, reside in rural or underserved communities, or face barriers to frequent travel, advancing more accurate, affordable and scalable models of neurological care.
Rieger has partnered with hospitals and care facilities since childhood to support patient healthcare outcomes, informing her long-standing research on music and medicine. Her work includes Mellon-funded leadership of the Music and Mind project at Dartmouth in collaboration with the Geisel School of Medicine, multisensory Alzheimer’s research with MIT’s Aging Brain Initiative, and ongoing investigations with MGH into sensory and music-based interventions for stroke rehabilitation and global healthcare access. She serves as an appointed Selection Committee Member for MIT’s Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST), is a founding member of MIT’s Innovation Fund. Her honors include the Morningside Academy for Design Fellowship and the Hugh Hampton Young Memorial Award.
Her work is featured on BBC Radio 3's "Messy Guide to AI" as well as the book Music and the Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness (Penguin Random House), edited by Renée Fleming, and in the audiobook edition of Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens by Patricia Lynne Duffy. Across disciplines and continents, her work seeks to advance more humane, sensory-rich futures for healthcare and wellbeing. As part of her dissertation she is convening an aspirational board of leading creative and active ‘sensory practitioners’ to shape more humane futures for healthcare, arts and wellbeing. In 2027, Alexandra will be featured in a major network documentary, filmed in fall 2026, highlighting her interdisciplinary scientific practice and innovative work leading the MGH CHORD Study. The film will explore her pioneering integration of neuroscience, music, engineering, and design to develop novel multisensory approaches that advance rehabilitation and improve patient care.
A classically trained musician who began playing the piano at age two, her musical practice and training as a luthier directly inform the design of customized instruments for clinical and therapeutic use. She has performed internationally in contexts ranging from hospitals, care facilities, and benefit concerts to folk festivals, opera houses, and silent film theaters. Her scholarship on cultural memory and storytelling, including within Alzheimer’s disease research, is deeply informed by sustained engagement with folk traditions, oral histories, vanishing musical heritage, and archaic instruments. Through both research and practice, she supports the preservation of traditional songs as living repositories of memory, sensory knowledge, and human experience.
Outside the lab, Alexandra enjoys exploring the roots of folk music and is currently assembling an archival folk anthology to help preserve traditional musical heritage. She finds joy in nature, meditation, travel, and community service. Her commitment to human connection extends beyond healthcare innovation: she was part of the founding team that launched the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Random Acts of Kindness Week and contributed to the development of an innovative digital kindness platform published in the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) Proceedings.