Shanel Wu

  • PhD, Creative Technology and Design '23
  • ATLAS INSTITUTE

Shanel M. Wu (pronouns: they/them/their) is a PhD student in the ATLAS Institute at CU Boulder researching smart textiles. After graduating from Harvey Mudd with a Bachelor of Science in physics and computers in 2016, they taught math and science, as well as freelanced as an independent fiber artist, instructor and knitwear designer. They are also a self-taught knitter, crocheter, spinner and designer of knitting patterns. Advised by Laura Devendorf, Shanel researches the intersections of cutting-edge technology and handicraft in the Unstable Design Lab. Their work seeks to foreground issues of sustainability and justice in the emergent smart textiles technological domain.

Projects

Publications

Fiona Bell, Shanel Wu, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Mirela Alistar and Leah Buechley. 2024. "Making Biomaterials for Sustainable Tangible Interfaces". In: Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '24), (Cork, Ireland, February 11-14, 2024).

Shanel Wu, Xavier A Corr, Xi Gao, Sasha De Koninck, Robin Bowers, Laura Devendorf. 2024. "Loom Pedals: Retooling Jacquard Weaving for Improvisational Design Workflows". In: Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '24), (Cork, Ireland, February 11-14 2024).

Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Lily M Gabriel, Mikhaila Friske, Shanel Wu, Sasha De Koninck, Laura Devendorf, and Mirela Alistar. 2023. "Designing Dissolving Wearables". In: Adjunct Proceedings of the 2023 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing & the 2023 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computing (UbiComp/ISWC '23 Adjunct). (October 08, 2023).

Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Netta Ofer, Shanel Wu, Mary Etta West, Mirela Alistar and Laura Devendorf. 2022. "Exploring Biofoam as a Material for Tangible Interaction". In: Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’22), Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1525-1529. (June 13-17, 2022—Virtual Event, Australia). 

Shanel Wu and Laura Devendorf. 2020. "Unfabricate: Designing Smart Textiles for Disassembly". In: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’20). (Honolulu, Hawaii (virtual) – April 25-30, 2020).

Mikhaila Friske, Shanel Wu and Laura Devendorf. 2019. "AdaCAD: Crafting Software For Smart Textiles Design". In: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '19). (Glagow, UK – May 4-9, 2019) [Best Paper Honorable Mention Award]