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I am a multidisciplinary artist-researcher who explores the intersection of art, cognition, and technology. My practice spans sculpture, illustration, animation, and education, with a long-standing interest in how visual and linguistic systems shape understanding. I love turning complex ideas into engaging, approachable work that invites curiosity and collaboration. Through art, teaching, and community projects, I strive to connect storytelling with real-world impact, running workshops, public art initiatives, and collaborative exhibitions that bring science and creativity into everyday life.…I am a multidisciplinary artist-researcher who explores the intersection of art, cognition, and technology. My practice spans sculpture, illustration, animation, and education, with a long-standing interest in how visual and linguistic systems shape understanding. I love turning complex ideas into engaging, approachable work that invites curiosity and collaboration. Through art, teaching, and community projects, I strive to connect storytelling with real-world impact, running workshops, public art initiatives, and collaborative exhibitions that bring science and creativity into everyday life.

Michelle 'Misha' Oraa Ali

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I am a multidisciplinary artist-researcher who explores the intersection of art, cognition, and technology. My practice spans sculpture, illustration, animation, and education, with a long-standing interest in how visual and linguistic systems shape understanding. I love turning complex ideas into engaging, approachable work that invites curiosity and collaboration. Through art, teaching, and community projects, I strive to connect storytelling with real-world impact, running workshops, public art initiatives, and collaborative exhibitions that bring science and creativity into everyday life.…I am a multidisciplinary artist-researcher who explores the intersection of art, cognition, and technology. My practice spans sculpture, illustration, animation, and education, with a long-standing interest in how visual and linguistic systems shape understanding. I love turning complex ideas into engaging, approachable work that invites curiosity and collaboration. Through art, teaching, and community projects, I strive to connect storytelling with real-world impact, running workshops, public art initiatives, and collaborative exhibitions that bring science and creativity into everyday life.

Available to hire

I am a multidisciplinary artist-researcher who explores the intersection of art, cognition, and technology. My practice spans sculpture, illustration, animation, and education, with a long-standing interest in how visual and linguistic systems shape understanding. I love turning complex ideas into engaging, approachable work that invites curiosity and collaboration.

Through art, teaching, and community projects, I strive to connect storytelling with real-world impact, running workshops, public art initiatives, and collaborative exhibitions that bring science and creativity into everyday life.

Skills

Illustration

Experience Level

Illustration

Expert

Work Experience

Graduate Research Scientist at Brown University, Language and Thought Lab

August 1, 2019 - January 1, 2024

Developmental psycholinguistics studies on learning distributivity/universality in children; research on data visualization and communicative efficiency.

Research Assistant at Harvard University, Department of Psychological Sciences

April 1, 2019 - August 1, 2019

Designing stimuli for welfare tradeoff tasks in children; infant data collection; contributing to studies on social cognition and Theory of Mind; collaboration on narrative compositionality stimuli.

Research Support Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brain and Cognitive Sciences

June 1, 2017 - February 1, 2019

Investigated prosody as a cross-linguistic universal; developed a software pipeline for analyzing recordings (HMM-based forced aligners) and extracting acoustic features; supported eye-tracking and language research.

Undergraduate Research Scholar at Janelia Research Campus, HHMI

June 1, 2016 - August 31, 2016

Studied sensorimotor integration and context-dependent behavior in Drosophila using optogenetics and confocal methods.

Lead Undergraduate Investigator; Thesis Student at Mount Holyoke College

January 1, 2015 - January 1, 2018

Used EEG to measure ERPs to study rhythm and metrical structure in implicit prosody during silent poetry reading; multiple independent research projects.

Research Assistant at Mount Holyoke College; Biological Sciences

January 1, 2015 - January 1, 2016

Neuroscience and behavior research; involvement in neuroimmunology and developmental studies.

Undergraduate Research Fellow at University of Pennsylvania, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience

January 1, 2015 - January 1, 2016

Independent project on social responses to facial appearance; corpus creation and data analysis in R and SPSS.

Freelance Illustrator and Designer at Self-employed

January 1, 2006 - Present

Created original characters and illustrated stimuli for research and educational projects; produced covers, logos, and publication/artwork for clients including top institutions.

Radio DJ and Sound Engineer at MIT/Humanities radio stations

January 1, 2014 - January 1, 2019

Hosted and engineered radio shows; developed on-air content and sound design.

Intern at C&M Ceramics

January 1, 2025 - Present

Slipcasting intern; cast molds, glaze development, and kiln operation.

Archives & Special Collections Student Archivist at Mount Holyoke College

January 1, 2015 - January 1, 2017

Curated exhibitions; catalogued feminist zine collections and visual data representations.