Talk
CS Colloquium: Mirela Alistar on Computing for & with Biological Matter
When
· 3:30 PM MDT
Shown in the venue’s time zone (America/Denver), not yours.
Where
Boulder, CO
Tickets
No on-sale date recorded
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What the source said
Please join us in ECCR 265 or on Zoom! Abstract: My research asks a bidirectional computer science question: how can computation transform how we interact with biology, and how can biology transform how we design computation? I pursue this question through BioHCI, an emerging area of Human-Centered Computing that integrates biological matter. In one direction, I develop programmable biochips that translate biological laboratory protocols into computational workflows. Digital microfluidic systems bring computer science concepts such as programming, scheduling, and error recovery, into direct coordination with droplets, reagents, DNA, and microorganisms. In this context, I investigate how biological protocols can become programmable, executable, and accessible to interdisciplinary users. In the other direction, I investigate how bio-derived materials can expand the design space of computing. My group develops biomaterials for wearable computing in which sensing, display, deformation, and end-of-life behavior become properties of the material system itself. This work moves wearable computing beyond electronics mounted on textiles toward computational media that can respond to the body, transform during use, and biodegrade after use. I will conclude with future work on computational systems that can grow, absorb, deform, transform, and decay over time. Bio:Mirela Alistar is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, with appointments in the Department of Computer Science and the ATLAS Institute, where she directs the Living Matter Lab. Her research is in Human-Computer Interaction and Human-Centered Computing, with a focus on BioHCI: the study of computational systems that interact with and are made from biological matter. Her research spans programmable digital microfluidic biochips, microbial interfaces, sustainable wearable computing, and computational biomaterials that sense, actuate, deform, dissolve, and biodegrade. Mirela's work has appeared across computer science, HCI, and engineering venues including ACM CHI, UbiComp/ISWC, IEEE TCAD, and IEEE TBME. Mirela received her PhD from the Technical University of Denmark and was a postdoctoral researcher at the Hasso Plattner Institute before joining CU Boulder.