Biography
Sang Leigh is an Assistant Professor at Cornell University. Previous to joining Cornell, he was a Senior Principal Creative Technologist at Samsung Design Innovation Center and an assistant professor at Georgia Tech. He received his PhD from MIT Media Lab in 2018, before which, he was a software engineer at Samsung Electronics where he led the software development of eyeCan, an open-source DIY eye-mouse designed for people with motor disability.
The impact of his research spans from publications in top tier HCI conferences such as CHI, TEI, and NIME, journals including Leonardo and IEEE Pervasive Computing, to design awards and art exhibitions. Several of his work were awarded the Fast Company Innovation by Design Award, and have been shown in art exhibitions at SIGGRAPH ASIA, CHI, TEI, and more. His work A Flying Pantograph was included in the Otherly Space / Knowledge exhibition at the Asia Culture Center along with some of the most prominent new media artists today. In 2014, He was an artist-in-residence at Microsoft Research Studio 99 where he created Remnance of Form – an interactive light and shadow installation. His work has received extensive media coverage from BBC, WIRED, Discovery, Fast Company and so on, and he was invited to national and international events including Sebasi+Pan, TEDx events, Seoul Digital Forum, and more.
Research interests
Sang’s research focuses on the creative, critical, and aesthetic use of technology in design making. He has spent the past decade bridging academia and industry, leading design innovation initiatives around human-centered applications of technology. Through the design of performative technological artifacts, he envisions alternative and more sustainable forms of human–technology relations—what he calls symbiosis.
His current work explores new horizons for AI systems that are interpretive, embodied, and symbiotic. He directs the Machine Poetics Lab, which investigates experimental designs that challenge the normative and uncritical pervasion of technologies—particularly AI—into everyday life. He uses making as a method to surface new questions about how emerging technologies shape human experience, values, and futures.