The Digital Music Theranostics Laboratory is pleased to host Mi-Eun Kim, Lecturer in Music and Director of Keyboard Studies at MIT, and Praneeth Namburi, Research Scientist at the Institute for Medical Engineering and Sciences at MIT, for a hands-on workshop sharing their work on using ultrasound to explore the Biomechanics of Piano Playing on Thursday, 26 March 2026, from 12PM-1.30PM at King’s College London’s Waterloo Campus, in the James Clerk Maxwell Building, G.30 (57 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8WA). See Mi-Eun and Praneeth speak about their project on MIT News.
Workshop on Biomechanics of Piano Playing with Praneeth Namburi and Mi-Eun Kim
12PM-1.30PM, THURSDAY, 26 March 2026
Hosted by the Digital Music Theranostics Lab at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences (BMEIS), Department of Engineering, and the Music and Acoustics Research Centre (MARC)
King’s College London, James Clerk Maxwell Building, Room G.30, 57 Waterloo Rd, London SE1 8WA
Join us for an intensive workshop exploring the biomechanics of piano playing, led by Praneeth Namburi (MIT Institute for Medical Engineering and Science) and Mi-Eun Kim (MIT Music and Theater Arts). Using ultrasound imaging, you’ll take a peek inside your arms as you are performing, develop an intuition for your body’s role in musical performance, and preview and discuss preliminary research findings. This hands-on session bridges science and art, offering insights into how elastic tissues organize and guide movement during piano playing. Whether you’re a student, teacher, or professional, you’ll gain practical knowledge about efficient movement patterns that could support both artistry and lifelong health.
Praneeth Namburi (praneethnamburi.com) is a Research Scientist at the Institute for Medical Engineering and Sciences at MIT, where he investigates the role of elastic mechanisms in enabling efficient, expressive, and coordinated movement. His research focuses on how elite athletes, musicians, and dancers leverage the body’s elastic structures—such as muscle and connective tissue—to achieve exceptional performance. By integrating motion capture, B-mode ultrasound, and custom computational tools, Dr. Namburi develops novel methodologies for tracking tissue motion and uncovering biomechanical strategies that distinguish the movements of experts from that of novices. His work bridges biomechanics, neuroscience, and data science to uncover foundational principles of movement organization that support expertise across diverse domains of skilled performance.
Korean-American pianist Mi-Eun Kim (www.mieunkimpiano.com) is Lecturer in Music and Director of Keyboard Studies at MIT, where she teaches piano through the Emerson/Harris Program for Private Study, coaches ensembles in the MIT Chamber Music Society, and mentors students across a wide range of musical initiatives. Mi-Eun holds D.M.A., Specialist Degree, and M.M. in Piano Performance and Chamber Music from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in History from Columbia University through the Barnard-Columbia-Juilliard Exchange. Her teachers include Logan Skelton, Christopher Harding, Richard Cass, Seymour Lipkin, Stanislav Ioudenitch, and Yong-Hi Moon.
Mi-Eun Kim and Praneeth Namburi co-lead Biomechanics of Piano Playing, (www.pianobiomechanics.com) a research project housed at MIT.nano’s Immersion Lab and supported by the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC). The project explores how movement science, musical expression, and pedagogy intersect in piano performance. It has been featured in MIT News and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and presented internationally, including Music Teachers’ National Association National Conference, KAIST-MIT Convergence Conference, University of Michigan, International Symposium on Performance Science, Southern Methodist University, University of Nevada–Las Vegas, and Changwon National University.
