Alex Olwal, Ph.D.
Engineering Leader / Product Innovation, R&D and User Experience

Human—AI Interaction · Augmented Reality · Wearables · Human—Computer Interaction · Accessibility · Interaction Technology · Ubiquitous Computing

Founded and led various teams at Google, including the Interaction Lab; Tech & Society 2024-2025, Augmented Reality 2020-2024, Research 2018-2020, ATAP 2017-2018, Wearables 2015-2017, [x] 2014-2015. Academic research conducted at MIT, Columbia University, University of California, KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), and Microsoft Research, with much appreciated collaborators and contributors at the same or other institutions. Also, thank you Stanford University, Rhode Island School of Design and KTH for the opportunity to teach.

Alex Olwal

inFORM / Sublimate
inFORM dynamically changes material and form to adapt the physical and virtual interface.

Sublimate explores rapid and fluid transitions between physical and visual representations of dynamic digital content.
inFORM: Dynamic Physical Affordances and Constraints through Shape and Object Actuation
Follmer, S., Leithinger, D., Olwal, A., Hogge, A., and Ishii, H.
Proceedings of UIST 2013 (ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology), St Andrews, UK, Oct 8-11, 2013, pp. 417-426.

UIST 2013
 PDF [0.5MB]
Sublimate: State-Changing Virtual and Physical Rendering to Augment Interaction with Shape Displays
Leithinger, D., Follmer, S., Olwal, A., Luescher, S., Hogge, A., Lee, J., and Ishii, H.
Proceedings of CHI 2013 - Best Paper Honorable Mention Award (Top 5%) (SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems), Paris, France, Apr 27-May 2, 2013, pp. 1441-1450.

CHI 2013 - Best Paper Honorable Mention Award (Top 5%)
 PDF [1MB]
thumbnails/inform/1.jpg  thumbnails/inform/2.jpg  thumbnails/inform/3.jpg  thumbnails/inform/4.jpg  thumbnails/inform/5.jpg  thumbnails/sublimate/1.jpg