Lining Yao
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Director of the Morphing Matter Lab
Zheng-White Berkeley Engineering Faculty Fellow
Executive Committee, Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation (JIDI)
University of California, Berkeley
Email: liningy@berkeley.edu
Lining Yao is an Assistant Professor at the Mechanical Engineering department, the University of California, Berkeley, where she directs the Morphing Matter Lab (morphingmatter.org). Dr. Yao also has courtesy appointments in CMU’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute.
Her research explores the positive impact of active and morphing materials on sustainable design across different scales and contexts. Her work focuses on discovering and studying morphing material mechanisms, as well as algorithms for computational design and fabrication pipelines. Dr. Yao has published in both computer science and physical science venues and has received nine Best Paper or Best Talk Awards and nominations from premier conferences in Human-Computer Interaction. Her journal papers have been featured as cover stories in Nature, Science Advances, and Advanced Materials Technologies. Her work has been widely featured in popular media outlets, including The New York Times, Wired, Scientific American, Fast Company, National Geographic, and BBC, among others. Dr. Yao received her Ph.D. from the MIT Media Lab in 2017, and spent her time as a tenure-tracked faculty member at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University before joining UC Berkeley. She is the co-founder of the MorphingMatter4Girls Initiative, a Wired UK fellow, and an appointed instructor in eco-design by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
Featured Talks
Seminar talk by Lining Yao at Stanford, on human-computer interaction aspect of morphing matter. Link
TEDx Talk: What nature teaches us about sustainable design | Lining Yao | TEDxPittsburgh
Lining Yao giving a Keynote at the Symposium on Geometry Processing: “Computing Morphing Matter: the Marriage of Geometry and Hidden Forces”
Distinctive Voices presentation for the National Academy of Sciences. On sustainability of food and packaging design.
At Google, Lining Yao shares the interdisciplinary design philosophy of morphing matter.
Wired UK talk on bacteria powered sustainable breathing fabric.
Ars Electronic STARTS Journeys invited the lab to share its mission in a documentary film.
Representative Publications (here for the full list)
Featured News (here for the full list)
Teaching
Instructor: Lining Yao (course creator)
Grad and Undergrad, special topic (30 students)
This course is a hybrid of lecture and hands-on lab course in which students learn the science and design principles of tangible and morphing materials and interfaces. In parallel, inclusive design guidelines will be introduced and practiced for the final project.
Instructor: Lining Yao (course creator)
Grad and Undergrad, special topic (30 students)
This course teaches the designing, printing and engineering of morphing matter- the creation of new materials that can change their shapes. The course consists of both design and technical lectures, light weight hands-on lab sessions, and two interdisciplinary team projects.
Instructor: Karen Kornblum , Lining Yao
Undergrad, primary course (40 students)
This studio course offers a broad overview of communication and interaction design. Students will learn design methodologies such as brainstorming, sketching, storyboarding, wire framing, and prototyping. Students learn to take a human-centered design approach to their work.
Instructor: Skip Shelly, Paul Pangaro, Karen Kornblum, Lining, Laura Vinchesi
Grad, primary course (120 students)
This studio course introduces students to design thinking and the basic practices of interaction design. We follow a human-centered design process that includes research, concept generation, prototyping, and refinement.
