Gierad Laput

AWARDS & HONORS

2018 Google PhD Fellowship
2018 Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellowship
2018 McGinnis Venture Capital Award
2017 Fast Company Innovation by Design Award
2016 Best Paper Award ACM UIST
2016 Best Talk Award ACM UIST
2015 Best Paper Award ACM CHI
2015 Best Talk Award ACM UIST
2016 Adobe Research Fellowship
2014 Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship
2013 Disney Research Fellowship

ACADEMIC SERVICE

Editor-in-Chief, ACM XRDS Magazine
2019 ACM UIST Program Committee, Demos Co-Chair
2019 ACM CHI Program Committee, Associate Chair (AC)
2018 ACM UIST Program Committee, Associate Chair (AC)
2018 ACM CHI Program Committee, Associate Chair (AC)
2018 ACM UIST Prog. Comm., Student Innovation Contest
2018 ACM CHI, Session Chair: Tangibles
2018 ACM UIST, Session Chair: Sensing in the Small Scale
2017 ACM UIST Prog. Comm., Student Innovation Contest
2017 Faculty Hiring Committee, Carnegie Mellon, HCII
2017 ACM CHI, Session Chair: Sensing and Input
2017 ACM MobileHCI Program Commitee, AC, Workshops
2017 ACM CHI Program Committee, AC, Late-Breaking Work
2017 ACM MobileHCI, Workshop Co-Organizer
2016 ACM CHI Program Committee, AC, Late-Breaking Work

SELECTED INVITED TALKS

2018 Snap Research, Invited Speaker (Venice, CA)
2018 UC San Diego, HCI/Design Lab
2018 Qualcomm, HCI Seminar (San Diego, CA)
2018 World Sensors Symposium (Anaheim, CA)
2018 University of Michigan, MISC/HCI Series
2017 Pittsburgh City Council, PGH Labs 2.0
2017 ACM SIGGRAPH 2017 (Los Angeles, CA)
2017 Magic Leap (Seattle, WA)
2017 Amazon Alexa Day (Pittsburgh, PA)
2017 US-China Innovation Summit (Pittsburgh, PA)
2015 Stanford University HCI Lunch Seminar (Stanford, CA)
2015 Disney, Themed Entertainment Conference
2015 Google Daydream Demo Day (Mt. View, CA)
2014 Yahoo! Inc., Fellows Day (Sunnyvale, CA)
2014 General Electric, TechKnowledge Global Telecast
2014 Samsung, Sensors and Devices Panel (San Jose, CA)
2013 University of Michigan, A2 Data Dive (Ann Arbor, MI)

EMPLOYMENT

2018 Apple (Pittsburgh, PA)
2017 Microsoft Research (Redmond, WA)
2015 Google Research (Mt. View, CA)
2014 Walt Disney Imagineering (Pittsburgh, PA)
2013 University of Washington (Seattle, WA)
2012 Adobe Research (San Francisco, CA)

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Carnegie Mellon University, Designing Human-Centered Systems
Carnegie Mellon University, Signal Processing and Electronics Prototyping
Carnegie Mellon University, User-Centered Research and Evaluation
University of Michigan, Needs Assessment and Usability Evaluation
University of Michigan, Introduction to Programming

Reviewing (100+ papers so far)

ACM CHI ’13 ’14 ’15 ‘16 ‘17 '18,
ACM UIST ’14 ‘15 ‘16 '17 '18,
ACM UbiComp ’15 ‘16, '17 '18,
ACM MobileHCI ‘15 ‘16 '17 '18,
ACM DIS '16 ‘17 '18,
ACM TOCHI ‘15,
ACM ICMI ‘15, '17 '18,
ACM IUI ‘16 ‘17,
ACM TvX ’16,
ACM GI '17,
ACM ISS ‘16 '17'
ACM Automotive UI ‘17
IEEE Potentials ‘16,
IEEE Pervasive '16,
TEI ‘16 ‘17
NordiCHI ‘18

DEMOS

Presented live demos to conference attendees at several venues, including:

SIGGRAPH 2015 2017,
ACM CHI 2014 2015 2016 2017,
ACM UIST 2012 2014 2015 2016,

Presented demos of my research to numerous companies and popular press, including: Apple Inc., Google, Samsung, LG, Sphero, Gizmodo, Engadget, Bosch Research, Akustica, LivePerson, Bayer Materials Science, NEXT Pittsburgh, Yahoo! Inc., Bank of America, Adobe Systems, SAP, Japan Displays Inc., Northrup-Grumman, and The Walt Disney Company.

SELECTED PRESS COVERAGE

2018 TechCrunch , "This Robot Users Lasers to Listen to the Environment"
2018 The Register (UK), "Alexa heard what you did last summer – and she knows what that was, too: AI recognizes activities from sound"
2018 Science Daily,"Sound, vibration recognition boost context-aware computing"
2018 Google AI Blog , "Announcing the 2018 Google PhD Fellows for North America, Europe and the Middle East"
2018 Pittsburgh Business Times ,"AI Startup wins McGinnis Venture Competition"
2017 Bloomberg, Innovator Profile,"Gierad Laput: This Cracker-Size Sensor Can Tell You Which Oven Burner You Left On"
2017 NPR All Tech Considered, "Our Homes May Get Smarter, But Have We Thought It Through?"
2017 NPR (WESA FM), "CMU Grad Students' Universal Sensor Could Make The Internet Of Things Cost Less And Do More"
2017 WIRED, "Your Camera Wants to Kill the Keyboard"
2017 MIT Technology Review, "This Mega-Sensor Makes the Whole Room Smart"
2017 The Wall Street Journal, "How to turn anything into a touchpad"
2017 TechCrunch, "Google-funded ‘super sensor’ project brings IoT powers to dumb appliances"
2017 Uproxx, "A New Gadget Can Make Your Home ‘Smart’ Without Replacing Anything"
2017 ComputerWorld, "Google, A.I. and the rise of the super-sensor"
2017 Android Authority, "This could turn your entire home into a smart home with a simple click"
2017 Discovery Channel, "Turn Anything into a Touchscreen With 'Electrick'"
2017 Engadget, "A smart home mega sensor can track what goes on in a room"
2017 Digital Trends, "Synthetic Sensors create a connected home without adding smart devices"
2017 Futurism, "A New “Mega-Sensor” Could Make Your Entire Home Smart"
2017 The Verge, "Electrick lets you spray touch controls onto any object or surface"
2017 NPR (WESA FM), "CMU Researchers Find If You Can Paint It, You Can Make It A Touch Screen"
2017 Engadget, "Get ready to 'spray' touch controls onto any surface"
2017 Popular Mechanics, "High-Tech Spray Paint Can Make Anything Into a Touchscreen"
2017 TechCrunch, "New technique turns anything into a touch sensor"
2017 Daily Mail, "Graffiti goes hi-tech: Radical spray paint can turn ANYTHING into a touchpad"
2017 MIT Technology Review, "A Cheap, Simple Way to Make Anything a Touch Pad"
2017 Gizmodo, "Scientists Figure Out How to Turn Anything Into a Touchscreen Using Conductive Spray Paint"
2017 Newsweek, "Conductive Spray Paint Can Turn Any Surface Into a Touchscreen"
2017 CNET, "Turn Anything into a Touchscreen With 'Electrick'"
2017 New Scientist, "Spray-on touch controls give an interactive twist to any surface"
2017 TechCrunch, "How a tap could tame the smart home"
2017 The Verge, "Someday we might be able to use smart gadgets through electromagnetic emissions"
2017 New Atlas, "Single Synthetic Sensor keeps watch over entire room"
2017 MIT Techonology Review, "Home Assistants Like Amazon Echo Could Be a Boon for Assisted Living"
2016 Fast Company, "The Best User Interfaces of 2016"
2016 TechCrunch, "Overclocked smartwatch sensor uses vibrations to sense gestures, objects and locations"
2016 Gizmodo, "Brilliant Mod Makes Smartwatches Actually Useful"
2016 Yahoo! News"A hacked smartwatch can tell what your hands are doing, holding or touching"
2016 The Verge, "Carnegie Mellon researchers hacked an LG smartwatch to turn it into a gesture device"
2016 Fast Company, "A Smartwatch that Recognizes what you Touch"
2016 Digital Trends, "Ingenious accelerometer hack could allow existing smartwatches to identify any object that you grab"
2016 Fast Company, The Most Innovative Student Design of 2016
2016 Scientific American, Maker Movement Turns Scientists into Tinkerers
2016 NPR, “SkinTrack Technology Turns Your Forearm Into a Trackpad”
2016 MIT Technology Review, “Use Your Arm as a Smart Watch Touch Pad”
2016 The Verge, “New Tech Turns Your Skin into a Touchscreen”
2016 Huffington Post, “New Tech Turns Your Arm Skin Into A ‘Touchpad’”
2016 CNN, “This Watch Turns Your Arm into a Touchscreen”
2016 Newsweek, “Smart Ring Turns Your Skin into a Touchpad”
2016 Yahoo! News, “SkinTrack Turns Your Whole forearm into a Smartwatch Interface”
2016 WIRED, “SkinTrack Can Turn Your Skin into a Touchscreen”
2016 TechCrunch, “Want More Screen Space on Your Smartwatch? Put a ring on it...”
2016 The Daily Mail, “Frustrated with Tiny Smartwatch screens? Gadget Turns the Skin into a Touchpad”
2016 Popular Science, This Smartwatch Turns Your Skin into a Touch Screen
2016 Inverse, “Carnegie Mellon Can Turn Your Beautiful Skin into a Vast Smartwatch Trackpad”
2016 Gizmodo, “This New ‘Skinterface’ Could Make Smartwatches Suck Less”
2016 Engadget, “Navigate your Smartwatch by Touching Your Skin”
2016 Mashable, “Researchers Create Wild Skin-Touch Interface for Tiny Smart Watches”
2016 Maxim, “This Freakishly Futuristic Technology Lets You Use Your Skin as a Touchscreen”
2016 Discovery Channel, “Your Arm Could be the Touchpad”
2016 MIT Technology Review, “Pause Your Tunes by Taking Out Your Earbuds”
2015 NPR, “CMU Technology Syncs Smart Watch User’s Actions With Helpful Apps”
2015 BBC News, Click (TV Programme, Aired Live), “The Smartwatch Gets Serious”
2015 NBC News, “Disney Smartwatch Knows What You’re Touching and Tells You What to Do Next”
2015 CBS, “A Smartwatch that Knows What You’re Touching”
2015 Discovery Channel, “Smartwatch Turns Your Body into an Antenna”
2015 Ars Technica, “Disney’s smartwatch prototype can identify and track everything you touch”
2015 Vice Motherboard, “Disney Designed a Smartwatch that Knows What You’re Touching”
2015 WIRED, “EM-Sense Enabled Smartwatch Can Detect When You Touch a Doorknob”
2015 Popular Mechanics, “Disney’s Wild New EMSense Tech Can Identify Any Gadget You Touch”
2015 Futurity, “Smartwatch 'Internet of Things' uses body as an Antenna”
2015 The Daily Mail, “EM-Sense knows what you’re touching and shows relevant information on its display”
2015 WIRED UK, “Disney’s concept smartwatch knows what you’re touching”
2015 Mashable, “Researchers create wild skin-touch interface for tiny smart watches”
2015 Gizmodo, “Your Smartwatch Might Soon Know Exactly What You’re Touching”
2015 Fast Company, “This $10 Hack Could Let Your Apple Watch Sense Everything You Touch”
2015 New Scientist, “No-touch smartwatch scans the skin to see the world around you”
2015 Hacker News (Front Page), “Disney’s EM-Sense Smartwatch, contextually determining what you’re touching”
2015 ACM Tech News, “System Recognizes Objects Touched by User, Enabling Context-Aware Smartwatch Apps”
2015 PSFK, “Disney’s Watch Can Tell What You’re Holding, Opening Up World of Self-Contained Interactivity”
2015 Digital Trends, “Armed with electromagnetic sensors, Disney’s new wearable can tell what you’re touching”
2015 TechCrunch, “Researchers Can Now Create 3D-Printed (Plastic) Hair”
2015 Fast Company, “This Delicate Hair Is Artisan-Level 3-D Printing”
2015 Business Insider, “You can now use a 3-D printer to create artificial hair”
2015 Cosmopolitan, “You Can Now 3-D Print Hair”
2015 Marie Claire, “3-D Printers Are Now Making Hair: Is This the Future of Extensions?”
2015 Hack A Day, “Hair Enthusiasts Rejoice! Synthetic Follicles are Now 3D-Printable”
2015 Plastics Today, “Carnegie Mellon fur-bricates plastic hair with low-cost 3D printer”
2015 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “CMU researchers develop technique for printing hair strands”
2015 Discovery Channel (Canada) Live Broadcast, “Furbrication”
2015 MIT Technology Review, “You Can Now 3-D Print a Toupee”
2015 New York Magazine, “So Long, Weaves. 3-D Printers Can Now Make Hair”
2015 CBS, “Carnegie Mellon Researchers Create ‘Hair’ With 3-D Printer”
2015 NPR, “Bad Hair Day? Try Printing It Instead”
2015 CNET, “3D-printed hair puts a coiffure on your plastic creations”
2015 Engadget, “3D printing hair is as easy as using a hot glue gun”
2015 Gizmodo, “Sorry, Hair Club—We Can Finally 3D-Print Hair”
2015 WIRED, “There’s a Way to Control Phones With Sound, Not Electronics”
2015 TechCrunch, “Disney’s Lab Builds Buttons That Work By Manipulating Soundwaves Rather Than Electricity”
2015 IEEE Pervasive Mag, “Acoustruments: Passive, Acoustically-Driven Interactive Controls for Handheld Devices”
2015 Fast Company, “Disney’s Incredible iPhone Accessories Can Hear How You Touch Them”
2015 Gizmodo, “Disney Invented a Way To Control Your Phone Using the Sounds It Emits”
2015 Mashable, “Researchers use sound waves to control iPhones”
2015 Engadget, “Disney’s ‘acoustruments’ can control phones using their own sounds”
2015 WIRED, “Human Smarts Plus AI Could Unlock Computer Vision”
2015 PCWorld, “Zensors app lets you crowdsource live camera monitoring”
2015 Gizmodo, “One Old Android Phone Could Make All Your Dumb Things Smart”
2015 Engadget, “Scientists turn old smartphones into all-seeing eyes”
2014 Gizmodo, “The 7 Most Important UI and UX Ideas of 2014”
2014 New York Times, “In a Small Space, a Big Issue: Researchers Look at Ways to Fit Technology in Confined Spaces”
2014 TechCrunch, “Skin Buttons Are Working Buttons Projected Onto The Skin”
2014 WIRED, “A Smartwatch That Projects Buttons Onto Your Skin”
2014 Fast Company, “This Smartwatch Projects Laser Buttons Onto Your Skin”
2014 New Scientist, Magazine Issue #2991 (UK), “Skin buttons expand smartwatches”
2014 Gizmodo, “7 Experimental Interfaces That Show the Future of UI Design”
2014 WIRED, “Hardware Whizzes Solve a Big Smartwatch Problem: Your Fat Fingers”
2014 MIT Technology Review, “A Smart Watch Controlled by Twists, Tilts, and Clicks”
2014 New Scientist, “Tilting smartwatch cuts need for fiddly screen-jabbing”
2014 Gizmodo, “A Joystick-Inspired Interface Could Solve Smartwatches’ Biggest Problem”
2014 Engadget, “Concept smartwatch uses the whole screen as a joystick”
2014 PCWorld, “Researchers try a new ‘twist’ on smartwatch control”
2013 PetaPixel, “PixelTone: A Futuristic Image Editor That Lets You ‘Shop Photos Using Your Voice”
2013 PCWorld (Bulgaria), “Скоро може да се появи графичен редактор с гласово и жестово управление”
2013 Pop Photo, “PixelTone: A Voice Controlled Photo Editing App for iPad”
2013 Discovery Channel, Featured on the Daily Planet’s digit@l Segment
2013 Gizmodo, “Adobe’s Developing a Brilliant Photo Editing App You Can Just Talk To”
2013 NBC, “Voice-controlled photo app PixelTone: Shades of ‘Blade Runner’”

See Curriculum Vitae for an extended list and other press coverage...