Alexandra Ion
Assistant Professor
Interim Associate Director of HCI Undergraduate Programs
Director of the Interactive Structures Lab

Carnegie Mellon University
Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Robotics Institute (by courtesy) | School of Computer Science
Mechanical Engineering (by courtesy) | College of Engineering

Contact

Address:
407 S Craig St, Room 202
Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA

email: alexandraion(a)cmu.edu


   Curriculum Vitae

Physical interfaces: from mechanical intelligence to physical AI

We research adaptive systems for physical interaction that respond to user needs. Our research advances the creation of responsive materials and intelligent structures that sense, react, adapt, and communicate with users and the environment. We design computational methods and innovative materials that seamlessly blend computation, fabrication, and robotics. Applications include assistive devices, rehabilitation, architecture, smart homes, and daily activities. We bridge the gap between understanding user needs and adapting to them by developing full-stack research prototypes, incl. software systems and physical interfaces.

My lab’s work is published at and awarded by top-tier HCI (ACM CHI & UIST) and graphics venues (ACM SIGGRAPH) and has been recognized with the prestigious NSF CAREER award. It was showcased in multiple exhibitions, including a permanent exhibition at the Ars Electronica Center in Austria. Our work also captured the interest of media such as CNET, Wired, Dezeen, Fast Company, Gizmodo, etc., and presented at TEDx. Before joining CMU, I was a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich in Computer Graphics and completed my PhD in HCI at the Hasso Plattner Institute, a small, highly selective, top-tier institute for computer science in Germany.

Find our complete research on the  LAB WEBSITE

Selected Publications

All publications are updated on our lab website or on Google Scholar. Please find them there!
One nugget -- find my PhD thesis here: Metamaterial Devices

 

Towards Unobtrusive Physical AI

In Proceedings of UIST ’25.

 

Personalized Bistable Orthoses

In Proceedings of UIST ’25.

 

Constraint-Driven Robotic Surfaces

In Proceedings of UIST ’23.

 

Developable Metamaterials

In Proceedings of CHI ’21.

 

Digital Mechanical Metamaterials

In Proceedings of CHI’17.

 

Metamaterial Mechanisms

In Proceedings of UIST'16.

Academic Service

Program committee chairing:
  • ACM UIST 2024 program co-chair
  • ACM CHI 2024 subcommittee co-chair “Building Devices”
  • ACM SIGGRAPH 2024 Poster chair
  • ACM CHI 2023 subcommittee co-chair “Building Devices”

Program committee member:
  • ACM UIST 2026, 2022, 2021, 2020
  • ACM CHI 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019
  • ACM SIGGRAPH 2021 – Posters committee
  • ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 – Technical briefs and posters
  • Graphics Interface 2020

Organizing committee:
  • ACM SIGGRAPH 2023 – Student Research Competition chair
  • ACM UIST 2022, 2023 – Doctoral Symposium co-chair
  • ACM UIST 2020, 2021 – demonstrations co-chair
  • ACM UIST 2019 – sustainability co-chair
  • ACM UIST 2018 – local arrangements co-chair, accessibility chair
  • ACM UIST 2017 – student volunteer co-chair
  • ACM UIST 2016 – documentation chair

Invited talks

  1. CMU Turn Tartan: Women in STEM Panel Discussion. April 23, 2026.
  2. CMU Center for Collaboration Science, panelist “Expert Panel on Collaboration in Action”. February 13, 2026.
  3. CMU Lab to Market Spring 2026, panelist “Research Outlook”. February 11, 2026.
  4. Princeton University, hosted by Parastoo Abtahi. October 27, 2025.
  5. Playing Models conference, invited speaker. August 13, 2025.
  6. Materials Research Society 2024 Fall Meeting. December 2, 2024.
  7. Extended Reality Technology Center. November 21, 2024.
  8. University of Konstanz, hosted by Tiare Feuchtner & Harald Reiterer. July 6, 2023.
  9. Austrian CS Day, hosted by IST Austria. June 21, 2022.
  10. University of Washington, Computational Fabrication, hosted by Adriana Schulz, Jeff Lipton. April 13, 2022.
  11. Stony Brook University, Civil Engineering Seminar, hosted by Paolo Celli. November 15, 2021.
  12. Tsinghua University, Access Computing Summer Program, hosted by Yukang Yan. August 10, 2021.
  13. MIT Summer Geometry Institute, hosted by Justin Solomon. August 3, 2021.
  14. Stanford HCI Seminar. May 28, 2021.
  15. Toronto Geometry Colloquium. March 31, 20201.
  16. CMU Mechanics Seminar, hosted by Kaushik Dayal. October 2, 2020.
  17. University of Toronto, hosted by Tovi Grossman. March 26, 2020.
  18. Carnegie Mellon University, hosted by Scott Hudson. March 23, 2020.
  19. Boston University MechE, hosted by Alice White. March 17, 2020.
  20. Boston University CS, hosted by Emily Whiting. March 16, 2020.
  21. University of Chicago, hosted by Blase Ur. March 12, 2020.
  22. Aalto University, hosted by Elisa Mekler, Antti Oulasvirta. March 5, 2020.
  23. IST Austria, hosted by Bernd Bickel. March 2, 2020.
  24. Cornell University, hosted by Cheng Zhang, François Guimbretière. February 26, 2020.
  25. TU Delft CS, hosted by Elmar Eisemann. Februray 7, 2020.
  26. TU Delft PME, hosted by Just Herder. Februray 4, 2020.
  27. Aalto University, hosted by Antti Oulasvirta. December 17, 2019.
  28. University of Copenhagen. December 16, 2019.
  29. TU Delft, hosted by Just Herder. November 14, 2019.
  30. University of Chicago, hosted by Pedro Lopes. October 29, 2019.
  31. University of Stuttgart, hosted by Achim Menges. September 16, 2019.
  32. Google (Mountain View), hosted by Alex Olwal. August 9, 2019.
  33. UC Berkeley, hosted by Björn Hartmann. August 8, 2019.
  34. Stanford, hosted by Sean Follmer. August 7, 2019.
  35. UCLA, hosted by Ankur Mehta. August 2, 2019.
  36. MIT Media Lab, hosted by Hiroshi Ishii. June 19, 2019.
  37. MIT CSAIL, hosted by Stefanie Mueller. June 19, 2019.
  38. ETH Zurich, PhD Seminar. October 26, 2018.
  39. University of Sussex, hosted by Diego Martínez & Sriram Subramanian. May 21, 2018.
  40. Université de Montréal, hosted by Bernhard Thomaszewski. April 27, 2018.
  41. IST Austria, hosted by Bernd Bickel. March 2, 2018.
  42. ETH Zürich, hosted by Olga Sorkine-Hornung. December 14, 2017.
  43. SAP Walldorf, hosted by Andreas Polze & Bernd Welz. December 11, 2017.
  44. TU Delft, hosted by Jouke Verlinden. December 4, 2017.
  45. Aarhus University, hosted by Roman Rädle. October 5, 2017.
  46. Technomania, hosted by The Danish Society of Engineers IDA. October 4, 2017.
  47. Driving 3D, hosted by The Danish Society of Engineers, IDA. September 29, 2017.
  48. TEDx Poznan. April 8, 2017.
  49. Singularity University Copenhagen, hosted by Märtha Rehnberg. December 14, 2016.
  50. TU Berlin, hosted by Marc Alexa. 2016.
  51. TU Berlin, hosted by Marc Alexa. 2015.

Awards & Honors

Academic

  1. Best paper award. ACM CHI 2026.
  2. NSF CAREER award 2025.
  3. Best Demo Honorable Mention, Jury's choice. ACM UIST 2025.
  4. Best paper award. ACM PACM (ISS’23).
  5. Best demo award. ACM UIST 2023.
  6. Received the Sara Kiesler Junior Development Chair at CMU HCII for 2023-2024
  7. Selected for Rising Stars in EECS 2019.
  8. Best visual communication award for TrussFormer. ACM CHI 2019 Video Showcase.
  9. Scholarship for academic exchange (2018 DAAD FIT program, ~9 000 EUR).
  10. My CHI 2015 talk is the example for a good presentation on the CHI conference website, 2016 – present.
  11. Best paper honorable mention award. ACM UIST 2016.
  12. Best paper honorable mention award. ACM CHI 2013.
  13. Nominated for national best master’s thesis award. 2012.

INDUSTRY/ART/DESIGN

  1. Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Award (Honorable Mention) 2018, for Adding Force Feedback to MR.
  2. VIDA. Incentive Award 2016, for Ad Infinitum.
  3. Bronze Cyber Lion, Cannes Lions 2010, for “Last call” (interactive movie).
  4. Bronze Media Lion, Cannes Lions 2010, for “Last call” (interactive movie).
  5. Bronze "Digital Media Craft", ADC Germany 2010, Art directors club, for “Last call” (interactive movie).

Invited Exhibitions

METAMATERIAL DEVICES

  • Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria. 2019 – 2021.
  • BMBF (german federal ministry for education and research) InnoTruck (travelling exhibition). 2017 – 2020.
  • UNIVERSUM Mexico City, “3D, printing the world”. September 2019 – February 2020.
  • Espacio Fundación Telefónica Chile, Santiago, “3D, printing the world”. March 2019 – July 2019.
  • Espacio Fundación Telefónica Argentina, Buenos Aires, “3D, printing the world”. July 2018 – October 2018.
  • Espacio Fundación Telefónica Peru, Lima, “3D, printing the world”. December 2017 – April 2018.
  • Espacio Fundación Telefónica Spain, Madrid, “3D, printing the world”. June – September 2017.
  • CeBit 2017. Futurium booth (Berlin-based museum for ideas of the future). March 20 – 24, 2017.

AD INFINITUM

  • Przemiany Festival, Copernicus Science Center Warsaw. September 13-16, 2018.
  • World Economic Forum, San Francisco. December 2017 – May 2018.
  • Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria. 7-11 September 2017.
  • Science Gallery Dublin, Ireland, “Humans need not apply”. February – May 2017.
  • Natural History Museum Bern, Switzerland. September 9, 2016.