Professor Vivian Shen is a faculty member at the Entertainment Technology Center, where she teaches classes focused on AI and hardware for games and experimental media. She comes directly from finishing her PhD at CMU’s Robotics Institute, with the Future Interfaces Group. Her background lies in embedded systems, sensing and VR/AR, and much of her work is focused on creating new systems and devices for haptics and interaction. She has published at several premier Human-Computer Interaction conferences (CHI, UIST, etc.), and her work has been featured on NBC, TechCrunch, CNN and more. Outside of the PhD, Vivian has interned at companies such as Meta Reality Labs, Disney Research, NASA JPL, etc. In her free time, Vivian plays a LOT of ultimate frisbee and does chainmaille art!
Best Demo Jury Award & People’s Choice Honorable Mention Uist 2023
Best Paper CHI 2022
Best Paper SUI 2021
Publications
Shen, V. and Harrison, C. 2025. Kinethreads: Full-Body, Low-Cost, Flexible Haptic Exosuit using Motor-Pulley Mechanisms. 38th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.
Shen, V., Yang, X., Harrison, C., and Zhang, Y. 2024. Hapt-Aids: Self-Powered, On-Body Haptics for Activity Monitoring. Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive Mobile Wearable Ubiquitous Technology, Volume 8, Issue 4. Presented 2025 Ubicomp Conference.
Shen, V., Harrison, C., and Shultz, C. 2024. Expressive, Scalable, Mid-Air Haptics with Synthetic Jets. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. Presented at 2024 ACM CHI Conference.
Shen, V., Rae-Grant, T., Mullenbach, J., Harrison, C., and Shultz, C. 2023. Fluid Reality: High-Resolution, Untethered Haptic Gloves using Electroosmotic Pump Arrays. 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.
Shen. V. and Harrison, C. 2022. Pull Gestures with Coordinated Graphics on Dual Touchscreen Devices. 2022 ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction.
Shen. V., Shultz C., and Harrison, C. 2022. Mouth Haptics in VR using a Headset Ultrasound Phased Array. 2022 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
Ahuja, K., Shen. V., Fang, C., Riopelle, N., Kong, A., and Harrison, C. 2022. ControllerPose: Inside-Out Body Capture with VR Controller Cameras. 2022 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
Shen, V., Spann, J., and Harrison, C. 2021. FarOut: Extending the Range of ad hoc Touch Sensing with Depth Cameras. 2021 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction.
Rudranarayan, M., Abcouwer, N., Brinkman, A., Chamberlain-Simon, B., Dolci, M., Emanuel, B., Gross, J., Jones, L. Kim, J., Mayo, J., Ohta, P., Sanigepalli, S., Shen, V., Smith, R., Ubellacker, W., and Wehage, K. 2018. Testbeds and Technologies for potential Mars orbital sample capture and manipulation. IEEE Aerospace Conference.
