Dr. Meichun Liu

Biography

Meichun Liu is a scholar and international award-winning designer whose work explores the boundaries between mass production and handcraft, as well as the tangible and digital. She specializes in smart crafts, combining craft materials and processes with digital technologies to enhance sensory experiences and interactions. Meichun has collaborated with biomedical engineers to develop wearable devices such as EEG helmets and smart contact lenses. Her current research focuses on how technological artifacts mediate human experience and interaction at various scales. At an individual level, she examines the persuasive effects of digitally enhanced artifacts on human behavior and decision-making. At a system level, she employs agent-based modeling and simulation techniques to study the emergent properties driven by design interventions in complex adaptive systems. Before joining the University of Washington, she served as an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Creative Product Design at Asia University in Taiwan, where she received the Excellent Teaching Award in 2016. She also founded Wolkeland Design, working in collaboration with craftspeople to develop contemporary designs with traditional materials. An accomplished industrial designer, Meichun has been recognized with numerous design innovation awards, including the Red Dot and G-Mark. She completed her PhD in Design at North Carolina State University, and holds a Master of Design from the University of Alberta, and a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Design from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan.

Research Interests