Katia Vega is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Design at the University of California, Davis, where she founded and directs the Interactive Organisms Lab. By blurring the lines between human-computer interaction, the skin and wearable technologies, her lab leads interdisciplinary explorations of the next generation of organisms-device symbiosis. Novel interfaces in/around the skin, and within bio-organisms are created such as: Beauty Technology (electronics embedded into cosmetics), Body Modification Technologies (biosensors into tattoos or dental orthodontics for health monitoring) and Growable Interfaces (sustainable interfaces through bio-based materials as a substrate for circuitry).
She was a Postdoc Associate at MIT Media Lab (USA). She got her PhD and master's degree in Computer Science at PUC-Rio (Brazil). She was a researcher in the Fine Arts Department at HKBU (Hong Kong). Her undergraduate studies were done in Computer Science at UNMSM (Peru). She publishes at top-tier academic computer science conferences and journals including CHI, ISWC, TEI, DIS, IUI and IEEE Computer. Her work has been featured by BBC, Vice, New Scientist, Wired, Discovery, CNN, Fast Company, Mashable, among others. Her academic contributions were awarded by SXSW, Ars Electronica, Johnson & Johnson, CNET, among others. Springer published her book: "Beauty Technology: Designing Seamless Interfaces for Wearable Computing”.