Professor in Performing Arts Technology, University of Michigan, US
Professor Sile O’Modhrain is a professor in performing arts technology in the School of Music, Theatre and Dance, and professor of information in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on human-computer interaction, especially interfaces incorporating haptic and auditory feedback. She earned her master’s degree in music technology from the University of York and her PhD from Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. She has also worked as a sound engineer and producer for BBC Network Radio. In 1994, she received a Fulbright scholarship and went to Stanford to develop a prototype haptic interface augmenting graphical user interfaces for blind computer users.
Before taking up her position at the University of Michigan, Professor O’Modhrain taught at the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queens University Belfast and, from 2001 to 2005, she directed the Palpable Machines group at Media Lab Europe. In 2019, she co-founded NewHaptics, a start-up that has developed a multi-line braille display that uses microfluidic logic to address and actuate a large array of braille dots. Professor O’Modhrain’s monograph “A Dialogue of the Senses” has recently been published by MIT Press.
Professor Sile O’Modhrain HonFREng