Bio

Dr. Cesar Torres is the director of The Hybrid Atelier and an Assistant Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington. As a design researcher, he synthesizes new media and craft theory into the software and hardware design of creative, tangible user interfaces. He has received multiple best paper awards at top-tier venues within HCI and is the recipient of the NSF CRII Grant, NSF REU Site Grant, and MSR Accelerate Foundational Research Grant, and the UT System STARS Award. He serves on the program committees for ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS), Creativity and Cognition (C&C), and Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI).

He holds degrees in Computer Science (Ph.D. '19 - UC Berkeley, B.S. '13 - Stanford), in Art Practice (B.A. '13 - Stanford), and in New Media (D.E. '19 - UC Berkeley).

Projects

Published Projects

Anther

Cross-Pollinating Communities of Practice via Video Tutorials

Shared, Shaped, and Stolen

Tracing Sites of Knowledge Transfer across Creative Communities of Practice

[UG Symposium] Trace to Touch

Eliciting Gestures from Capacitive Touch Electrodes

[UG Symposium] Sentura

Understanding the Cognitive Affordances of Silicone Microtextures in Tangible User Interface Design

[Workshop] Advancing Creative Physical Computing Education

Designing, Sharing, and Taxonomizing Instructional Interventions

ShatterModel

Leveraging Proxemics to Design Human-AI Interactions in Adverse Environments

Computational Slip Casting

Navigating Clay Practices within Digital Fabrication

BridgeIt

Crossing the Knowledge Gaps Between Maker Communities of Practice

Castura

A Versatile Silicone Microtexture Fabrication Technique Using Laser-Engraved Micromolds

Thermoplastic Kilnforms

Extending Glass Kilnforming Techniques to Thermoplastic Materials using Ontology-Driven Design

BraidFlow

A Flow-annotated Dataset of Kumihimo Braidmaking Activity

Tacit Descriptions

Uncovering Ambiguity in Crowdsourced Descriptions of Motions and Materials

Cogcues

Shifting Perception through Interactive Projected Cues in Still Life Drawing

Proto-Pack

A Procedural Modular Prototyping Toolkit for Sustainable Packaging Design

Embr

A Creative Framework for Hand Embroidered Liquid Crystal Textile Displays

Glaze Epochs

Understanding How Material Knowledge is Externalized in a Ceramics Studio

Compressables

A Haptic Prototyping Toolkit for Wearable Compression-based Interfaces

I'm Better Off on My Own

Understanding How a Tutorial's Medium Affects Physical Skill Development

Siloseam

A Morphogenetic Workflow for the Design and Fabrication of Inflatable Silicone Bladders

Hybrid Microgenetic Analysis

Using Activity Codebooks to Identify and Characterize Creative Process

Phosphenes

Crafting Resistive Heaters within Thermoreactive Composites

A Conversation with Actuators

An Exploratory Design Environment for Hybrid Materials

Guardians of Practice

A Contextual Inquiry of Failure-Mitigation Strategies within Creative Practices

Hybrid Aesthetics

Design of New Media Practices within Digital Fabrication

Illumination Aesthetics

Light as a Creative Material within Computational Design

Aesthetic Electronics

Designing, Sketching, and Fabricating Circuits through Digital Exploration

ProxyPrint

Supporting Crafting Practice through Physical Computational Proxies

LiveObjects

Leveraging Theatricality for an Expressive Internet of Things

HapticPrint

Designing Feel Aesthetics for 3D Printing

MetaMorphe

Designing Expressive 3D Models for Digital Fabrication

Fl.UIs

Liquid Mediated Vision-Based Touch Surfaces

Reu Projects

AI-Assisted Glassworking Tools and Connected Wearables

Hybrid Workflows Track

Clay 3D Printing

Hybrid Workflows Track

Assistive Light Projection

Hybrid Workflows Track

Biomaterial Fabrication

Smart Material Toolkits Track

Computer-aided Translation

Hybrid Workflows Track

Conductive Soft and Metamaterials

Smart Material Toolkits Track

Material Ecologies and Literacy

Student Projects

Under our Feet

How Foraging for Wild Clay Can Inform Human-Material Interaction

From Concepts to Competency

Developing Skill Ontologies with LLM Assistance

Using Metal 3D Printing (DED) to Create Higher Order Shape Memory Alloys

Protect Your Cookies in a Physical Way

AirResistorID

Single-Sensor Distributed Tactile Sensing in Soft Robotic Finger Segments

CaseCast

Using Computational Slip Casting, Stamping, and Sprigging as a Batch Fabrication Toolkit for Crafting Electronic Enclosures

Physicalizing Tacit Skills in Neon Bending with Breathing Sensory Data