We’re so excited to announce that Yasaman Sheri will be joining us as our second Creative Resident this fall! Yasaman is a designer exploring the potential for interactions beyond the visual interface, through augmented and virtual reality, sensory, and other biological systems.
Yasaman’s career has spanned many fascinating technologies and systems. She was one of the first designers on the original Microsoft Hololens Operating System team, where she led design interactions on Windows Holographic for five years and designed novel spatial and gestural interfaces for augmented and mixed reality.
Since her time at Microsoft, Yasaman’s research and design work has focused on leveraging her knowledge in machine sensing to expand human experience of sensing and perception. Working with companies like Mozilla, Toyota, and Google X, and teaching at the Copenhagen Institute for Interaction Design and Art Center College of Design, she’s built a unique understanding of sensory design beyond the visual, extending into smell, taste, and haptics.
Sensing the environment is fundamental to living things, whether bacteria sensing the gradients of chemical resources in their watery surroundings, snakes sensing the heat of their prey to “see” in the dark, or humans smelling a delicious meal simmering in the kitchen. Biosensors are also fundamental to the study of biochemistry and the practice of synthetic biology: our earliest understandings of gene expression come from studying the system that the bacterium E. coli uses to sense and respond to the presence of lactose sugars, which in turn is used every day in labs to control the function of synthetic gene circuits.
During her time at Ginkgo, Yasaman will explore the design of biosensors in synthetic biology and their potential for intersection with human interaction, bringing her expertise as a designer of sensory experiences and interactive interfaces to this world of biosensors. We’ll be sharing updates from her time at Ginkgo here on the blog and on the Ginkgo Creative Residency Instagram @ginkgocreativeresidency.
