Leah Buechley is an American educator, engineer and designer who is best known as the developer of the LilyPad

Arduino Arduino () is an Italian open-source hardware and open-source software, software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardwar ...

toolkit and other smart textiles. Buechley is currently serving as an associate professor at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; ) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1889 by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, it is the state's second oldest university, a flagship university in th ...

's Department of Computer Science. Her research focuses on the intersection of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

, art, architecture, and education in her work. She has done fundamental work in electronics based on paper and fabric.

Biography

Buechley was born and raised in Penasco, New Mexico. In school, she was interested in math, science and the arts. Buechley attended

Skidmore College Skidmore College is a Private school, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. Approximately 2,700 students are enrolled at Skidmore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Scien ...

. Her original goal was to study dance to become a professional dancer, but later opted for a

STEM Stem or STEM most commonly refers to: * Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant * Stem group * Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Stem or STEM can also refer to: Language and writing * Word stem, part of a word respon ...

education. She graduated with a BA in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

. For postgraduate work, Buechley attended the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

. It was during her postgraduate studies that she decided merge her interests in STEM and arts. Her thesis was the winner of the NSF CAREER award and the Interaction Design and Children Edith Ackerman award in 2017. She received her PhD in computer science. While at the University of Colorado she also studied theater, fine arts, and dance. Buechley served as an assistant professor at the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

from 2009 to 2013, where she headed the High-Low Tech Research Group, which merged arts and crafts with

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and technology. The High-Low Tech Community has discussed the convergence of high and low technology from a cultural material and functional viewpoint. In 2019 Buechley joined the

as an associate professor. There she founded the research group Hand and Machine, which has researched novel and accessible 3D printing techniques, including 3D printing with metal clay to make metal objects, and recipes for 3D printing with biomaterial pastes.

Lilypad Arduino

In 2006, Buechley developed LilyPad Arduino e-textile technology kits, used to integrate electronics into

textile Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and different types of #Fabric, fabric. ...

s; these kits began a major wave of DIY

wearable electronics A wearable computer, also known as a body-borne computer, is a computing device worn on the body. The definition of 'wearable computer' may be narrow or broad, extending to smartphones or even ordinary wristwatches. Wearables may be for general ...

. The LilyPad is basically a

microcontroller A microcontroller (MC, uC, or μC) or microcontroller unit (MCU) is a small computer on a single integrated circuit. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Pro ...

that can be sewn into any clothing and configured as desired by the user. Through attaching the LilyPad to other widgets (such as light sensors, buzzers, and

accelerometer An accelerometer is a device that measures the proper acceleration of an object. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change (mathematics), rate of change of velocity) of the object relative to an observer who is in free fall (tha ...

s), the user may construct a dynamic piece of clothing that communicates with the person wearing the clothing and the surrounding setting. Buechley's research led to the creation of T-shirts that function as instruments, interactive

wallpaper Wallpaper is used in interior decoration to cover the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" to help cover uneve ...

s that control their environment, and sewable electronic components. This technology has already made its way into novelty items. Flexible_Lilypad_Arduino

Her work has been exhibited at the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

, the

Ars Electronica Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in t ...

Festival, and the

Exploratorium The Exploratorium is a museum of science museum, science, technology museum, technology, and art museum, arts in San Francisco, California. Founded by physicist and educator Frank Oppenheimer in 1969, the museum was originally located in the ...

. Buechley states that the purpose of her creations and works of art is to make technology more available and to inspire people to be "playful, fearless, experimental, and curious."

Recognitions / Awards

*Ellen A. Samworth prize in Physics, Skidmore College, 1997 *University of Colorado Fellowship, 2001-2002 *Best Paper Award,

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC), 2006 *MIT AT&T Career Development Professor, 2009-2013 * The Laptop Mag in its publication on February 22, 2011, listed Buechley as one of the top 20 most important women in mobile tech 2011. *

National Science Foundation CAREER Award The National Science Foundation CAREER award is the most prestigious award presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States Federal Government to support junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through rese ...

, 2011-2014 *Edith Ackerman Award for Interaction Design and Children, 2017 co-recipient with Jeanne Bamberger

In media

Books

Leah Buechley has written two books: ''Textile Messages: Dispatches from the World of E-Textiles and Education'', written and edited with Yasmin Kafai, Leah Buechley, Kylie Peppler, Michael Eisenberg, was first published on May 1, 2013. It focuses on the emerging field of electronic textiles or e-textiles-. ''Sew electric'': a collection of DIY projects that combine fabric, electronics, and programming was published in 2013 by HLT Press. It was written with Kanjun Qiu and illustrated by Sonja de Boer. Sew Electric is a series of hands-on LilyPad Arduino tutorials.

References

External links

Paper Publication: Referred journal and conference publication

More info on LilyPad

Leah Buechley's bio on MIT's high tech low tech
* *
TED Talk: Leah Buechley: How to "sketch" with electronics (TEDYouth 2011)

The Most Important Women in Mobile Tech 2011
*http://leahbuechley.com/publications_talks/buechley_cv_2018.pdf
FabLearn Keynote
a critical look at Making.
NSF Cyberlearning Summit
Art, Craft, and Electronics.
Eyeo
Making and Social Justice.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buechley, Leah Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American women engineers Place of birth missing (living people) MIT School of Architecture and Planning alumni MIT Media Lab people Skidmore College alumni American electronics engineers American women academics 21st-century American women