A graduate in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a PhD in Fine Arts from Tsukuba, Japan, John Maeda is a founder of the Aesthetics and Computing Group at MIT Media Lab.

In June 2008, he was appointed President of the Rhode Island School of Design. His 2006 publication, “The Laws of Simplicity”, is considered his most important work for providing insight into the complexity of technologies and the combination of form and code in visual communication. It has been said that his conclusions have helped in the construction of the Multimedia world.