Sile O’Modhrain

About

Sile O’Modhrain is a professor in Performing Arts Technology in the school of Music, Theatre and Dance, and professor of Information in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.

Her research focuses on human-computer interaction, especially interfaces incorporating haptic and auditory feedback. She earned her master’s degree in music technology from the University of York and her PhD from Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). She has also worked as a sound engineer and producer for BBC Network Radio. In 1994, she received a Fulbright scholarship, and went to Stanford to develop a prototype haptic interface augmenting graphical user interfaces for blind computer users.

For a recent summary of Sile’s work, see her TED talk.

Before taking up her position at the University of Michigan, Sile taught at the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queens University Belfast and, from 2001-2005 directed the Palpable Machines group at Media Lab Europe.

Here her work focused on new interfaces for hand-held devices that tightly couple gestural input and touch or haptic display.

Highlights

Book

‘A Dialogue of the Senses : Designing Interaction with the Body in Mind’

NewHaptics

In 2019, Professor O’Modhrain Co-founded NewHaptics, with Alex Russomanno and Professor Brent Gillespie. This start-up is manufacturing a multi-line Braille display based on microfluidic actuation.

TED Talk

Professor O’Modhrain describes her journey from the analog world of sound engineering to the digital world of graphical representation of information.

Unnatural selection: Survival in the digital age
May, 2017, London Business School