Dr. Ivan Poupyrev is an award-winning scientist, inventor and designer working at the cutting edge of interaction design and technologies blending the digital and physical realities. Ivan is currently a Technical Program Lead at the Google's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division where he directs efforts focused on interaction technologies and design for future digital lifestyle. Prior to Google he was Principal Research Scientist at the Walt Disney Imagineering research division and at Sony Corporate Research laboratories in Tokyo before that. He also did stints at the University of Washington as a visiting scientist, while working on his dissertation at Hiroshima University, Japan and at Princeton University School of Architecture as a Visiting Lecturer.

Ivan's research focuses on inventing new technologies and interaction paradigms that seamlessly blend digital and physical interactivity in devices, everyday objects, and living environments on a very large scale. It span a broad range of topics including virtual and augmented reality, haptics, sensing and actuators, interactive biological matter, energy harvesting, 3D printing and additive manufacturing and much more.

The results of his work were presented at major international scientific conferences, such as ACM SIGGRAPH, CHI and UIST to name a few and were broadly reported in international media including BBC, CNN, Fast Company, Wired, New York Times, New Scientist, Financial Times, The Washington Post, NIKKEI, Forbes, Time, MIT Technology review and many others. His research and design was released on the market in a variety of products worldwide and recognized with numerous awards including Nokia Ubimedia Award, an Honorable Mention at ARS Prix Electronica and multiple award for his research papers at top international scientific conferences. His work was nominated for National Design Award by Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Forrester Media featured him as one of the leading Digital Disruptors and Bloomberg Business Week run a profile about him as one of the Innovators of 2012. In 2013, Fast Company Magazine recognized him as one of the World’s 100 Most Creative People calling him “one of the best interaction designers in the world”.