Leah Buechley, 鶹ѰBoulder alumna, speaks on "Beautiful, Meaningful Computation"
Leah Buechley, 鶹ѰBoulder alumna and inventor of the influential LilyPad Arduino, a construction kit for sewable electronics, will speak at the ATLASInstitute on Aug. 29 as part of the ATLAS Distinguished Speaker Series. The event is free, and all are welcome.
In her lecture, “Beautiful, Meaningful Computation: Identity and Engagement in the Context of CS for All,” Buechley will advocate forintegrating computing with art and design within ‘Computer Science for All,’a national initiative to integratecomputer science into K-12 classrooms.Buechley will also discuss her work, from research in e-textiles and paper-based computing, to more recent projects whichfocus on algorithmic design and fabrication. She currently runs Rural/Digital, a design firm that explores playful integrations of technology and design.
“Combining the arts with electronics and computation creates unexpected juxtapositions,” says Buechley, a former associate professor at the MITMedia Lab, where she founded and directed the High-Low Tech group. “This integrationcanhelp people question their assumptions about whattechnology is, who makes and controls technology and who is ‘good’ at it."
Buechley’s work, mixing classic crafts with computing and electronics, has captured the imaginationof designersand is known for gettingartists and novices involved in engineering and STEM topics.Her LilyPad Arduino microcontroller, designed to be easily sewn intofabrics, provides soft and flexible connections between components, which can beprogrammed to light up, make sounds or perform other behaviors.She has also played an important role in developing technologies for paper-based computing.
Buechley says she was always drawn to STEM disciplines as well as the arts, and that she bounced between them in her early schooling andprofessional life. She began college as a dance major, but graduated with a degree in physics. She then lived as a “starving artist” in New York City forfive years before deciding to attend graduate school for computer science.
She later received a doctorate in computer science from 鶹ѰBoulder, where she also studied dance, theater, fine art and design, and her dissertationwork culminated in her invention of the LilyPad Arduino. (The commercial version of the LilyPad Arduino kit was collaboratively designed by Buechleyand SparkFun Electronics.) Her dissertation committee was chaired by Mike Eisenberg, professor of computer science with the Institute of CognitiveScience and an ATLAS faculty fellow, and it also included Mark Gross, who is now the director of ATLAS.In recognition of her research and design,Buechley received the 2017 Edith Ackerman award for Interaction Design and Children.
“Through Mike and Ann Eisenberg’s Craft Technology Group at 鶹ѰBoulder, I finally discovered that it was possible to combine mathematicaldisciplines with the arts,” she says. “I learned that there were vibrant communities of people who did this. I was completely enchanted to discovercountless ways to integrate computing with art and design. It was a wonderful revelation, and my career has been built around those integrations eversince.”
Who: Open to all
What:ATLAS Distinguished Speaker Series: “Beautiful, Meaningful Computation: Identity, Engagement, and the Arts in the Context of CS for All,” by Leah Buechley,PhD, inventor of the LilyPad Arduino.
When: Aug. 29, 5 p.m.
Where: ATLS 100, (Cofrin Auditorium), Roser ATLAS Center, 1125 18th St., Boulder
Etc.: Event is free; Reception to follow