Leah Buechley, CU Boulder alumna, speaks on "Beautiful, Meaningful Computation"

Leah Buechley, CU Boulder alumna and inventor of the influential LilyPad Arduino, a construction kit for sewable electronics, will speak at the ATLAS Institute 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 for integrating computing with art and design within ‘Computer Science for All,’ a national initiative to integrate computer science into K-12 classrooms.  Buechley will also discuss her work, from research in e-textiles and paper-based computing, to more recent projects which focus 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 MIT Media Lab, where she founded and directed the High-Low Tech group.  “This integration can help people question their assumptions about what technology 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 imagination of designers and is known for getting artists and novices involved in engineering and STEM topics. Her LilyPad Arduino microcontroller, designed to be easily sewn into fabrics, provides soft and flexible connections between components, which can be programmed 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 and professional 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 for five years before deciding to attend graduate school for computer science.

She later received a doctorate in computer science from CU Boulder, where she also studied dance, theater, fine art and design, and her dissertation work culminated in her invention of the LilyPad Arduino. (The commercial version of the LilyPad Arduino kit was collaboratively designed by Buechley and SparkFun Electronics.) Her dissertation committee was chaired by Mike Eisenberg, professor of computer science with the Institute of Cognitive Science 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 CU Boulder, I finally discovered that it was possible to combine mathematical disciplines with the arts,” she says. “I learned that there were vibrant communities of people who did this. I was completely enchanted to discover countless ways to integrate computing with art and design. It was a wonderful revelation, and my career has been built around those integrations ever since.”