Lana Cook, Ph.D. is the Associate Director of the MIT Systems Awareness Lab, where she manages a portfolio of research projects and administration of the Lab. Her research explores the use of aesthetics and narrative forms to express emergent sensory, affective and cognitive awareness across individual, relational, and collective levels. Prior to this work, Lana has worked as a strategist at MIT Open Learning, incubating new initiatives in education, including the Refugee Action Hub (ReACT) and Emerging Talent programs. Lana earned a doctorate in English at Northeastern University, with a focus on contemporary American literature, cinema studies and visual culture, where she was a 2014 Humanities Center Fellow investing different iterations and meanings of virality. She received her bachelor’s from University of New Hampshire in English and Philosophy. She is currently writing on a book on the history of the women of the psychedelic sixties. Her work appears in Configurations (John Hopkins UP), Chacruna, Forced Migration Review (U of Oxford) and other venues. She is also a Certified Master Practitioner in Compassionate Systems Awareness and Director of Communications at the Center for Systems Awareness.