Aatika Hayat is an interior design researcher, and a graduate of Parsons School of Design. She brings cross-disciplinary thinking to her work, drawing on twenty years in law and finance.

The Ageless Living Collaborative scholarship helped initiate her independent study at Parsons, The Mispriced Body, which examines how sensory, physical, and cognitive demands shape the effort required to participate in everyday spaces as people age.

From this research, she is developing Friction Atlas, a framework and digital tool to help designers translate evidence about aging into practical spatial choices and resolve competing demands. Her next step is to test its usability with practicing designers and examine how it influences their design decisions.

Her work has received the Parsons Social Justice and Equity in Design Award, an Honorable Mention for the ASID Joel Polsky Academic Achievement Award, and a SARA NY Design Award and Grant.