MIT Media Lab names new director, 15 months after Jeffrey Epstein scandal Previous director Joi Ito resigned in 2019 after it was revealed the school had taken donations from the convicted sex offender. Listen - 01:52 MIT Media Lab has a new director. Andy Ryan MIT Media Lab announced Tuesday that Dava Newman, an MIT professor of aeronautics and astronautics, will serve as its next director, starting in July. The news comes more than a year after the tumultuous departure of Joi Ito from the storied tech innovation center. In her academic work, Newman has integrated engineering, design, and biomedical research, including the development of the BioSuit concept for spacesuits that could be worn on missions to the moon and Mars. Newman has been a principal investigator for four space missions, developing experiments and techniques for studying astronaut activity on the space shuttle and the International Space Station.