Hiroshi Ishii

Hiroshi Ishii is the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab, where he founded and directs the Tangible Media Group. Ishii is a pioneer in human-computer interaction and a founder of Tangible User Interfaces, developing the influential visions of “Tangible Bits” and “Radical Atoms” to give physical form to digital information and create materials that can dynamically change their form and properties.

Ishii’s work bridges science, engineering, art, and design, and has been presented internationally at venues including Ars Electronica, Centre Pompidou, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Cooper Hewitt, and Milan Design Week. His research has helped establish new areas of human-computer interaction, including tangible and shape-changing interfaces.

Prior to joining MIT in 1995, Ishii led the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work research group at NTT Human Interface Laboratories in Japan. He received the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award in 2019 and was named an ACM Fellow in 2022 for his contributions to Tangible User Interfaces and human-computer interaction.