Katherine Song

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I am an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft. I recently completed my PhD in Computer Science @ UC Berkeley. My research is in human-computer interaction and centers around the creation of sustainable, backyard-degradable interactive systems that can be made and un-made at home by the everyday maker. My work embraces smart and natural materials, along with themes such as decay and slowness. Before Berkeley, I was a hardware researcher and engineer, completing my undergraduate and master’s theses in optoelectronic materials and devices and then working full-time as a Display Electrical Engineer at Apple.

news

Jun 18, 2024 I will be joining the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft as an Assistant Professor this fall! More details to come.
Dec 25, 2023 Interested in unmaking, biodesign, designing with more-than-human agents, and/or designing for the disassembly and repair of electronics? Join us on May 11, 2024 at CHI for a workshop on Sustainable Unmaking: Designing for Biodegradation, Decay, and Disassembly! See here for more details and the full call for participation. Submissions due February 28.
May 7, 2023 I’m delighted to be part of an awesome team (Steve Jackson, Kristina Lindström, Eric Paulos, Samar Sabie, Åsa Ståhl, and Ron Wakkary) of editors for a TOCHI special issue on Unmaking & HCI: Techniques, Technologies, Materials, and Philosophies Beyond Making. Call for papers here. Deadline June 30!

selected publications

  1. TOCHI
    Unmaking & HCI: Techniques, Technologies, Materials, and Philosophies Beyond Making
    Katherine W. Song, Samar Sabie, Steven Jackson, Kristina Lindström, Eric Paulos, Åsa Ståhl, and Ron Wakkary
    ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact., Sep 2024
    Just Accepted
  2. CHI
    Füpop: "Real Food" Flavor Delivery via Focused Ultrasound
    Katherine W. Song, Szu Ting Tung, Alexis Kim, and Eric Paulos
    In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Sep 2024
  3. UIST
    Decomposable Interactive Systems
    Katherine W. Song
    In Adjunct Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, Sep 2023
  4. CHI
    Lotio: Lotion-Mediated Interaction with an Electronic Skin-Worn Display
    Katherine W. Song*, Christine Dierk*, Szu Ting Tung, and Eric Paulos
    In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Sep 2023
  5. CHI
    Vim: Customizable, Decomposable Electrical Energy Storage
    Katherine W. Song and Eric Paulos
    In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Sep 2023
  6. CHI
    Towards Decomposable Interactive Systems: Design of a Backyard-Degradable Wireless Heating Interface
    Katherine W. Song, Aditi Maheshwari, Eric M. Gallo, Andreea Danielescu, and Eric Paulos
    In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Sep 2022
    🏅 Best Paper Honorable Mention (top 5%)
  7. CHI
    Unmaking: Enabling and Celebrating the Creative Material of Failure, Destruction, Decay, and Deformation
    Katherine W. Song and Eric Paulos
    In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Sep 2021
  8. CHI
    Crank That Feed: A Physical Intervention for Active Twitter Users
    Katherine W. Song*, Janaki Vivrekar*, Lynn Yeom*, Eric Paulos, and Niloufar Salehi
    In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts, Sep 2021