Beyond Flat Displays: Towards Shaped
and Deformable Interactive Surfaces

Jürgen is a visiting assistant professor in the Fluid Interfaces group at MIT Media Lab. He also leads an independent research group at the Center for Multimodal Computing and Interaction which is a part of Saarland University and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics. He is passionate about designing interactive computer displays that have the affordances and flexibility of paper. His current research focuses on user interfaces for different types of flexible displays, including rollable and foldable displays. Previously, he has designed and studied user interfaces for electronic pens and paper as well as for interactive tabletops. Jürgen graduated in Computer Science and French Studies at the University of Freiburg and holds a PhD in Computer Science from Darmstadt University of Technology. Prior to joining the Media Lab, Jürgen was head of the Tangible Interaction group at the Telecooperation Department of TU Darmstadt.

Daniel Leithinger is a Ph.D. candidate in the Tangible Media Group at the MIT Media Lab. His current research focuses on actuated tangible interfaces and interactive spaces. Prior to joining the Media Lab, Daniel completed his M.Sc. at the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences, Hagenberg and worked at research institutes like the Futurelab (Linz, Austria), HITLab (Christchurch, NZ), Media Interaction Lab (Hagenberg, Austria), Interactive Media Lab (Singapore) and Disney Research Lab (Pittsburgh, US). His work has been published at conferences like ITS, TEI, CHI and UIST, and demoed at venues like Siggraph, TEI, and Ars Electronica. He has received awards at the UIST Student Innovation Contest 2011, Siggraph Research Challenge 2009, RTT Emerging Technology Contest 2008 and 2011, Laval Virtual ReVolution Award 2007, Europrix Top Talent Award 2005 and 2006, and Austrian State Prize for Multimedia 2005.

Pol is a PhD candidate at the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab. He is interested in exploring the affordances of novel shapes of displays and how information representation could use them to become more intuitive and expressive. He cofounded Multitouch Barcelona an artistic collective that explored natural interaction between people and technology, specially but not uniquely with multi-touch technologies. He graduated Multimedia Engineering by Ramon Llull University (Barcelona) and he holds a Masters in Cognitive Science and Interactive Media by Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) and a Masters in Media Arts and Sciences by MIT (Cambridge, MA).

Pattie Maes is an associate professor, and holder of the Alexander W. Dreyfoos chair in MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences. She founded and directs the Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces group. Previously, she founded and ran the Software Agents group. She currently acts as the associate Department Head for the Media, Arts and Sciences Department. Prior to joining the Media Lab, Maes was a visiting professor and a research scientist at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. She holds bachelor's and PhD degrees in computer science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. Her areas of expertise are human-computer interaction, intelligent interfaces and ubiquitous computing. Maes is the editor of three books, and is an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences. She has received several awards: Newsweek magazine named her one of the "100 Americans to watch for" in the year 2000; TIME Digital selected her as a member of the Cyber-Elite, the top 50 technological pioneers of the high-tech world; the World Economic Forum honored her with the title "Global Leader for Tomorrow"; Ars Electronica awarded her the 1995 World Wide Web category prize; and in 2000 she was recognized with the "Lifetime Achievement Award" by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council.