Advisor: Pedro Lopes
I am a sixth-year Ph.D. student working in the Human-Computer Integration Lab, advised by Associate Professor Pedro Lopes. I published work at top Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) venues, including ACM CHI and UIST, of which 2 received Best Paper Awards. My work has also been awarded an Honorable Mention in the Fast Company Innovation by Design Award for Experimental Design and covered in media publications like WIRED, Fast Company, Digital Trends, and IEEE Spectrum. I am a 2023 Rising Star in EECS and a 2024 Siebel Scholar, was a UChicago Media Arts, Data, and Design Graduate Fellow, and received support for their research from a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. This summer, I completed a Research Internship at Microsoft Research New England.
My research focuses on engineering devices that chemically stimulate and manipulate the human senses. These chemical interfaces have reduced power consumption for thermal feedback (CHI 2020 Best Paper), miniaturized feedback mechanisms for touch (UIST 2021 Paper), created novel modes of interaction for taste like interactively changing the taste of real foods (UIST 2023 Paper), and digitized new sensations like stereo-smell (CHI 2021 Paper). In the future, I am excited to explore the application of such interfaces as assistive technologies, such as helping people who lost their sense of smell.
In my spare time, I independently explore media archaeology, focusing on historical scent technologies and associated media from the 20th century onwards. This work involves conserving AromaRama and Smell-O-Vision (1960 cinematic scent technologies), capturing oral histories from dot-com era scent tech companies (e.g., DigiScents & TriSenx), and uncovering scented film exhibitions from 1900-1959.
