Irmandy Wicaksono, Ph.D. is a transdisciplinary engineer, artist, and designer and a Research Affiliate at the MIT Media Lab. He is from Jakarta, Indonesia and currently based in Boston, United States.

Irmandy received his B.Eng. in Electronic Engineering at the University of Southampton, M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from the ETH Zurich, and S.M. and Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab. Throughout his graduate and undergraduate studies,  he has been involved in several companies and institutions (StudioXO for Haus of Gaga, Atmel, and KAUST) and in areas such as fashion/wearable technology and consumer electronics, from designing mechatronic dress, biomedical suits and spacesuits, to developing stretchable electronic patches and architectural fabrics. His work has been published in various journals and conferences, and featured in multiple news and media, including Forbes, FastCompany, Quartz, IEEE Spectrum, Nature, Advanced Materials, TechCrunch, Digital Trends, Domus Magazine, and Wired Italia and presented in Burning Man, SXSW, MIT Museum, Cambridge Science Festival, Boston Fashion Week, Lexus Intersect Tokyo, and the World Economic Forum.

His interests are the fabrication, manufacturing, and interaction techniques of unconventional electronics for ubiquitous sensing, actuation, and energy harvesting,  at times exploring the creative interplay between art, design, science, and engineering. The integration of soft electronics into common materials results in various applications ranging from health and well-being, rehabilitation, human-computer interfaces,  interactive media, to immersive-built environments. He has been working closely with textile and flexible electronics factories, making a strong connection between research and manufacturing. 

Education

S.M. and Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences (09/17 - 09/24)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States
MIT Media Laboratory

M.Sc. ETH in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology (09/14 - 09/16)
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland
Departement Informationstechnologie und Elektrotechnik

B.Eng. in Electronic Engineering (09/11 - 06/14)
University of Southampton, United Kingdom
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Labschool Jakarta Senior High, Indonesia (06/07 - 06/10)

Research Experience

Responsive Environments Group, MIT Media Lab, United States

  • Developing a multi-modal, large-scale and distributed electronic textiles with a collection of a local processor, sensors (touch, IMU, temperature, proximity, light, pressure, humidity, audio, position trackers) and actuators (vibration and LED) integrated as an electronic skin mesh system that bridges the digital and physical world.

  • Working on spacesuit technologies that involve closed-loop soft-robotic pneumatics, haptics, as well as tactile (capacitive, piezoresistive, piezoelectric) and health sensing (blood flow and pressure) for microgravity deconditioning and physical interaction in extreme environments

  • Developed a wearable device for preventing hand-to-face contact during the pandemic.

  • Operated and programmed digital knitting machine to develop various fabric patterns with functional materials and fibers for electronic textiles, including novel fabric-based musical controllers and architectural skins based on thermo and photochromics, capacitive, and electromagnetic sensing.

  • Conducted machine learning analysis of knitted piezo-resistive textiles as pressure-imaging mat, carpet, shoe, and sock for sports and gaming interface, physical activity recognition, and biomechanics.

  • Fabricated novel on-skin stretchable devices that illuminate for programmable, responsive user-interface or release scent and drug for sleep and therapeutics.

  • Participated in ‘Research at Scale’ program in Shenzen, China. Working annually with Shenzen’s manufacturing ecosystem to mass-produce flexible printed circuit boards and digitally-knitted textiles for research deployment in smart textiles for health and rehabilitation.

  • Performed photogrammetry and ethnographic studies on museum artifacts and developed an augmented/virtual reality mobile application for an immersive digital experience of museum exhibits (Museum 4.0 project in collaboration with Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

Conformable Decoders Group, MIT Media Lab, United States

  • Developed a washable and tailored electronic textile compression suit (E-TeCS) by embedding electronics in knitted customized fabrics for large-scale physiological (temperature, heart-rate, and respiration) and physical activity monitoring.

  • Explored microfabrication, electronic packaging approach, and novel materials for the development of soft 2-D ultrasound array patches in wearable tumor imaging for breast cancer detection.

Integrated Disruptive Electronic Applications Lab, KAUST, Saudi Arabia

  • Built a wireless charging battery system on a flexible substrate and expandable robotic display.

  • Explored various polymeric substrates and developed flexible inorganic devices such as bendable mono-crystalline silicon solar cells, wearable microfluidic drug delivery, and self-destructible flexible silicon that actuate through thermally-expandable materials.

  • Designed and implemented a smart parking management system that uses decal electronics and RFID principles. Supervised an undergraduate team from Effat University for their final Capstone project in developing a smart drinking bottle.

Wearable Computing Laboratory, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

  • Designed and implemented a multimodal smart textile patch for interaction, physiological monitoring, and activity recognition.

  • Developed an ultra-low-power camera system for infiniTime, a multimodal wearable sensing smart bracelet that runs perpetually by continuously harvesting energy (solar cells and thermo-electrics) from the environments and the human body.

Teaching and Work Experience

Research and Teaching Assistant, MIT Media Lab, United States

  • Supported research efforts at the Media Lab, as well as collaborations with member companies.

  • Teaching assistant for MAS.921: Proseminar in Media Arts and Sciences, MAS.836: Sensor Technology for Interactive Environments, MAS.S76: Adventures in Sensing, and MAS.809: Introduction to Microfabrication.

  • Mentored and supervised multiple undergraduate students in MIT UROP program with backgrounds ranging from computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, design to architecture for various wearables and smart textile projects. 

Summer Principal Research Associate, Future Technology Lab, Accenture, United States

  • Reinventing the future of sustainable and circular electronic textiles by developing novel materials and fabrication processes. Utilizing organic waste fabrics and exploring methods such as screen-printing, dip-coating and carbonization of carbon-based materials.

  • Project dissemination through intellectual property generation and academic paper (under submission). 

Summer Applications Engineer, Atmel Corporation, United Kingdom

  • Created a C# program to interact with a touch-screen development board through I2C/SPI adapter.

  • Optimized the hardware settings of a newly-developed touch and hover sensor IC, as well as sniffing I2C communications with Beaglebone for debugging purposes.

StudioXO + Haus of Gaga, London, United Kingdom

  • Assembled mechatronic dresses for Lady Gaga: bubble machine (Anemone) and servo (Cipher) premiered at the annual iTunes Festival 2013 in London and artRAVE event in Brooklyn, NY.

  • Cooperated with people from various backgrounds from the arts, mechanical and electrical engineering, to industrial and fashion design.

Academic Service and Grants

  • Invited Reviewer: Nature Communications 2024, Cogent Engineering 2024, Nature Scientific Reports 2024, foresight 2024, npj Advanced Manufacturing 2023, Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials 2023, Nature Scientific Reports 2023, ACM CHI 2023, ACM DIS 2023, NIME 2023, Sensors and Actuators: Physical 2023, International Journal of Human Computer Interaction (IJHCI) 2023, Ubicomp and ISWC 2023, Creativity and Cognition 2022, NIME 2022, Springer Nature: Health and Technology  2021, ACM CHI 2021, ACM UIST 2021, NIME 2021, ACM CHI 2020, IEEE Sensors 2020, ACM UIST 2020, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics 2018. Reviewer on behalf of PI: Nature Flexible Electronics 2020, Advanced Materials Technology 2019, Science 2019, Science Advances 2019 and 2018.

  • Poster-track Organizer, Virtual CHI Boston 2020.

  • Center for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT) Grant: Living Knitwork Pavilion, 2024.

  • Burning Man Arts, Black Rock City Honoraria: Living Knitwork Pavilion, 2023.

  • MIT SAP Harold Horowitz Grant: Electronic Textiles across Scales, 2023.

  • Amazon-MIT Science Hub Gift Fund - MIT Schwarzman College of Computing: Stretchable Tactile Sensing Textile Skin, 2022.

  • Lexus Design Award Commission: KnitX, 2021.

  • NSF RAPID Grant: Wireless Positioning for Mitigating COVID Surface Transmissions, 2020.

  • NASA-SEI TRISH Grant: Active Bioelectronic Textile for Microgravity Deconditioning, 2020.

  • NASA-SEI TRISH Grant: Electronic Textile Conformable Suit, 2019.

  • Zeno Karl Schindler Foundation Grant: MIT-ETH Zurich Thesis Exchange, 2017.

  • Member: ACM Association for Computing Machinery, 2024.

  • Member: IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, 2019.

  • Member: MIT Space Exploration Initiative, ZERO-G Flight, 2021.

  • Member: MIT Future of Fabric Conference, 2020.

  • Member: Google Arts and Culture Design Sprint, 2020.

Talks

  • Invited Talk: ”Sensate Textiles for Interactive Media and Environments”, MIT 21M.269: Music and Dance, Cambridge, November 2024.

  • Invited Talk: ”Knitting across Scales: Sensate Textiles for Interactive Media and Environments”, Design Field Notes, Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation, UC Berkeley, California, November 2024.

  • Invited Panel: ”Knitting: Past, Present and Future”, Electric Skin, Cambridge Science Festival and Boston Fashion Week, Cambridge, September 2024.

  • Invited Talk: ”In Conversation with Irmandy Wicaksono: Living Knitwork Pavilion at Burning Man”, Electric Skin, Cambridge Science Festival and Boston Fashion Week, Cambridge, September 2024.

  • Invited Talk/Keynote: ”Textile Macroelectronics: Architecting Sensate and Computational Fabrics Across Scales”, Advanced Textiles Expo: Emerging Technologies Conference, California, September 2024.

  • Invited Talk/Keynote: ”Textile Macroelectronics in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, Festival of Electronics and Instrumentation, Gadjah Mada University, February 2024.

  • Invited Panelist: “The Art of Play”, Boston Children’s Museum, Boston, June 2023.

  • Featured Artist: “BRC 2023 Deserts Arts Preview”, Online/Black Rock City, June 2023.

  • Invited Talk/Keynote: “Textile Macroelectronics: Sensate Fabrics Across Scales”, Keynote IDE2, Innovation Design Engineering, Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, March 2023. 

  • Invited Talk: “Arts and Culture: Fireside Chat”, MIT Asia Business Conference: MIT Sloan, Cambridge, March 2023. 

  • Invited Talk/Podcast: “Future of Knitting and Crafting”, Create the Future: Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, 2023.

  • Invited Expert: “The Road to 2050: Future of Lifestyle and Health”, Franklin Institute Documentary, 2023.

  • Science Talk: “Soft artificial intelligent tactile sensing arrays for interactive surfaces and human-robot interaction”, Amazon Science Hub Symposium, Cambridge, 2022.

  • Invited Talk and Panel: “Material Alchemist: Bits, Atoms, Magic”, MIT Media Lab Southeast Asia Forum, Bangkok, Dec 2022

  • Invited Talk and Panel: “Defying Gravity: From Space Exploration to Democratization”, MIT Media Lab Southeast Asia Forum, Bangkok, Dec 2022.

  • Science Talk: “New Fabrics: Functional Textiles”, Phage/Institute Dome, Burning Man, Black Rock City, 2022.

  • Invited Talk and Panel: “The Transformative Power of Fiber”, Catalyst Conversation, Cambridge Foundry, 2022.

  • Invited Talk: “Electronic Textiles across Scales: From Manufacturing to Applications”, MetaWare Seminar Series: Design, Technology, and Fashion at the age of Metaverse, Arizona State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Nanyang Technological University, 2022.

  • Invited Jury and Panelist: “Innovation Leadership Camp for Teens”, Memory Sports Indonesia, Jakarta, 2021.

  • Invited Talk: “Electronic Textiles for Interactive Objects and Environments”, Department of Visualization, TAMU College of Architecture, 2021.

  • Invited Talk: “Research at Scale: Hacking Manufacturing”, Towards Industrial Revolution 4.0, APIC, Jakarta, 2021.

  • Invited Talk: “Electronic Textiles: From Micro to Macro”, MITxFIT Advanced Fabric Workshop, Cambridge, 2021.

  • Invited Talk: “Future Scenarios of Fashion”, Design and Technology for Future Fashion Creatives, Milan (Online), 2020.

  • Invited Talk: “Electronic Textiles and Future of Fabrics”, ELLE Magazine and MIT Sloan, Fashion and Luxury Management Program, Cambridge, 2018.

  • Invited Talk: “FabricKeyboard as a Multi-modal and Expressive Sensate Media”, MIT Museum Science Café: Sound and Music, Cambridge, 2017.