CS547 Human-Computer Interaction Seminar   (Seminar on People, Computers, and Design)

Fridays 11:30am-12:30pm PT · Gates B3 · Open to the public
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Lining Yao
Carnegie Mellon University
Morphing Matter, a Materialized Interface
February 8, 2019

Morphing matter has unique behavior: it is fluidic and morphing, and it travels across the boundary of the physical and the digital. For people often designing with physical medium, morphing matter adds a flavor of programmability and responsiveness; for those designing with its digital medium, it adds tangibility and sensational experiences.

Morphing matter is transforming and mutating. It is an evoking design material as it adds spatial and temporal dimensionality. It reacts, adapts, and evolves; soon it will also grow, replicate, and age.

Morphing Matter is ecological. It recapitulates natural organisms, sourcing and reacting to environmental energy stimuli. It demonstrates the reciprocal relationship between the engineered and the grown.

In this talk, Lining presents recent work conducted by [Morphing Matter Lab](http://morphingmatter.cs.cmu.edu/) from the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, weaved through with threads about the behaviors and techniques of morphing matter.

Lining Yao is an Assistant Professor at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) of Carnegie Mellon University, and an adjunct professor of Mechanical Engineering and Material Sciences and Engineering. She directs the [Morphing Matter Lab](http://morphingmatter.cs.cmu.edu/), developing materials, tools, and applications of adaptive, dynamic and intelligent morphing matter from nano to macro scales. Research often combines material science, computational fabrication and creative design practices. Lining and her lab work anti-disciplinarily, publishing and exhibiting across science, engineering, design and art. In 2017, Lining gained her PhD at MIT Media Lab, where she combined biological and engineering approaches to develop physical materials with dynamic and tunable properties including shape, color, stiffness, texture and density.