Presenter

Alejandro Aponte-Lugo is a researcher born and raised on the beautiful island of Puerto Rico. He earned his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez. Alejandro’s undergraduate research spans instrumentation development, mechanism design, biomedical devices, assistive technology, digital fabrication, robotics, and user-centered design. As a graduate student, Alejandro focuses on the intersection of instrumentation development, system design, and digital fabrication, using computational methods to explore new multimodal interactions that bridge the gap between physical and virtual experiences. His work aims to leverage emerging XR and AI technologies to revolutionize hardware design for interaction and user-centered data collection, particularly in assisting users with complex physical tasks. Alejandro’s master’s research centered on system design, digital fabrication, interactive multimodal interfaces, and egocentric data collection, with publications at top HCI conferences, including CHI '23, UIST '23, and DIS '24. His master's final project explored user-centered hand mobility profiling, leading to the development of grasp-proximate user interfaces based on reachability and motion cost for user-specific fabrications. Now pursuing his PhD, Alejandro continues to explore instrumentation development and system design, utilizing digital fabrication and computational methods to create innovative physical interaction tools that uncover new ways to connect the physical and virtual realities with a focus on XR and AI physical task guidance applications.