He completed his Ph.D. in the Tangible Media Group of MIT's Media Laboratory in 2002, where his research focused on "tangible user interfaces." He held a postdoctoral position in the visualization department of the Zuse Institute Berlin, internships at Interval Research (Palo Alto) and Sony CSL (Tokyo), and has been a visiting lecturer at Hong Kong Polytechnic's School of Design. His research interests include tangible interfaces, visualization, computational genomics (and more broadly, computational STEAM), and rapid physical and electronic prototyping. He also has a strong interest in computationally-mediated arts and crafts, rooted in the traditions and material expressions of specific regions and cultures.