20 years of tangible and embodied interaction conference (#TEI2026 ) and it's happening in our campus and department at the university of Chicago! (Led by Ken Nakagaki!). Exciting program and tours coming up this week. Join us!
#CHI2026 program (the draft) is out: programs.sigchi.org/chi/2026/pro... a monster sized CHI that will definitely be fun and intellectually stimulating. Huge kudos to Pablo Cesar and Heloisa Candello, as well as our assistants for making this possible in such a short time ! Check it out!
Jun delivering his lecture at UTokyo
Humbled that I was asked (and able) to say a few words at Jun Rekimoto's final lecture for his retirement from UTokyo. See online the lovely archive they put together, a most inspiring legacy!
Super excited to be a part of this effort for the next generation of organic batteries! Thanks to the leadership of Shrayedh Patel and funding from the climate institute at UChicago! organicbattery.climate.uchicago.edu
CHI2026 will take us to Barcelona — and our local chairs shared their top recommendations 🌍
Don’t miss:
• La Sagrada Família
• Park Güell
• Gothic Quarter
• Poblenou
• Montjuïc
Plus great food at La Boqueria.
Planning to extend your stay? Highly recommended.
#CHI2026 #HCI #Barcelona
Go Lauren and Parastoo! Excited to read this one
Details: neurohci.github.io/CHI2026/
Slack: join.slack.com/t/neurohcico...
Going to @chi.acm.org #CHI2026? Join our #NeuroHCI meetup! If you work at the intersection of neuroscience & HCI or are curious come by.
Details+Slack link in thread
W/@iddowald.bsky.social Yudai Tanaka Yun Ho @jamieward.bsky.social @drmaxlwilson.bsky.social Kia Höök @pedrolopes.org Rainer Malaka
And finally, come to CHI 2026 in Barcelona, we can promise at least that it's the biggest paper program in CHI history!
The amazing people behind this effort are Alessandro Bozzon, Vera Liao, Thomas Kosch, and Xiaojuan Ma (and their assistants: chi2026.acm.org/organizing-c... ) and of course all the SC and ACs at all sub committees (chi2026.acm.org/authors/pape... ) and all of you who reviewed papers for CHI!
#CHI2026 received a record 6730 submissions and accepted 1703 papers (25.3%).
Handling these many papers required incredible hard work from paper chairs, SC, and ACs, and reviewers of @chi.acm.org --thank you deeply!
I remind you the poster and demo tracks are both still open for submissions!
#CHI2026 has a new format for more social based activities called Meetups ! Here's the inaugural list of meetups (accepted from the submissions, stats on that later) that you can participate at during the conference: chi2026.acm.org/meet-ups/acc... (spread the word!)
#CHI2026 program is shaping up: here's the first glimpse at the list of accepted workshops: chi2026.acm.org/workshops/ac...
This will be a really fun @chi.acm.org ! (Reminder that there's no added fee this year to attend workshops, they will happen throughout the conference!)
CHI workshops are out soon (full list coming), here's a great example already from @duri-long.bsky.social and colleagues! Check their website
This is insane! Peer reviewed abstract? Nah, let's just use AI one. ACM can do better!
#CHI2026 registration is open! (I know many of you are waiting on decisions papers and other tracks, but it'll be an awesome conference, so register already!)
chi2026.acm.org/2025/12/09/r...
P.s. also some tracks are still open for submissions if you need more reasons to attend!
I think this lines up (as a potential explanation) to why we can speed participants with muscle stimulation and they will not notice the speed up (report as their own or guess randomly) until the speed up is clearly distinct (typically 30ms is actually not far from our results!). Fascinating paper!
Metacognitive modeling of bodily self-awareness, made easy. Read The Conversation piece by @renzolanfranco.bsky.social about our new PNAS study here.
theconversation.com/why-our-phys...
<rant>That's what happens when you have massive budget but have done maybe (and it's really a maybe) one good movie (which happens to be terminator, again, maybe). I feel like Hollywood ratings should be scaled to the budget: 5 starts with huge budget, goes down to 2 stars :))) </rant>
Navigate the rise and fall of research topics over five decades using The Transmitter's interactive map, which is based on a semantic analysis of nearly 350,000 abstracts in leading neuroscience journals. Explore more: www.thetransmitter.org/publishing/p...
#neuroskyence #StateOfNeuroscience
#CHI2026 Student Mentoring Program is open for applications: chi2026.acm.org/authors/stud... with a brand new program:
(1) CHI 101
(2) Building a Research Cohort
(3) Dissertation Research Roundtable
Deadline: 22 Jan!
RT friends of @acm-sigchi.bsky.social @chi.acm.org
Learn what we work on: lab.plopes.org
All application details: lab.plopes.org/apply
cc @tengshanyuan.info @xjasminelu.bsky.social @uchicagocs.bsky.social
Alex rocking his chemical haptics device that lets you modulate friction using liquids.
Yun giving a TV reporter a drum lesson using muscle stimulation!
Shan-Yuan with an exoskeleton without batteries. Yudai with his wearable brain stimulator.
Jas with a nose implant that lets you smell in stereo. Jasmine with her slime-mold powered watch.
We are hiring PhD students in our Human-Computer Integration lab at the University of Chicago.
You can apply via UChicago:
1. Computer Science (deadline Dec 11)
2. Data Science (Dec 16)
3. Neuroscience Institute's CNS (Dec 3)
... Join us to work on how future devices will integrate with the body!
Pedro and Yudai with a TMS coil. Laughing.
I get a bunch of emails/comments about my single-take videos we do to showcase our lab's work, so we gathered them in one page: lab.plopes.org/videos.html (including an annotated history of how we started making these, and how they transformed over the years, to become more improv!)
First was a compelling talk by @pedrolopes.org on moving from human computer interaction to HC integration at @acmuist.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1sn... (2/8)
If we do this right, computers won’t pull us deeper into screens—they may bring us back into our bodies: more physical, embodied, and present.
Thanks Paul Rand for the conversation 🙏
🎧 Full episode: news.uchicago.edu/big-brains-p...
Learn/apply as PhD to our lab: lab.plopes.org 10/10
Listen to the episode of @BigBrainsUC podcast:
Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-iT...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0dUe...
Just web player: news.uchicago.edu/big-brains-p... (includes transcript)
Some insights below of our discussion 👇2/
Interview at the big brains podcast, which was a lot of fun and I had the chance to talk about much of our last years of work on bidirectional neural interfaces (e.g., muscle and brain computer interfaces that not only sense, but also stimulate and impart body movements). Link 👇
If we do this right, computers won’t pull us deeper into screens—they may bring us back into our bodies: more physical, embodied, and present.
Thanks Paul Rand for the conversation 🙏
🎧 Full episode: news.uchicago.edu/big-brains-p...
Learn/apply as PhD to our lab: lab.plopes.org 10/10
Our lab looks at this from many angles, namely safety!
When technology can act through the body, we must design for: agency and safety. (We publish often on how to keep agency!) The goal isn’t to replace humans.
It’s to augment our abilities while keeping in the driver’s seat 9/
