Digital Human–Material Interfaces

Digital human–material interfaces offer a new framework for merging sensing, actuation, and programmability across the boundary between humans and matter. On the human side, skin-conformal, wearable electronics capture physiological and biomechanical signals with high fidelity, translating them into digital data. On the material side, active metamaterials enable structures that dynamically reconfigure their mechanical response in real time. Together, these technologies form the basis of a bidirectional loop: human states are digitized into inputs, while material properties are adaptively reprogrammed to enhance performance and well-being. This talk will highlight recent advances toward this vision, from multimodal mechano-acoustic sensors that extract fine-grained physiological information to digitally reprogrammable metamaterials capable of altering shape and mechanical properties through embedded actuation, sensing, and feedback control. Converging into a unified platform, these systems point to intelligent soft matter that senses, interprets, and adapts continuously—opening opportunities in resilient human–machine interaction, precision medicine, and autonomous robotics.

Xiaoyue Ni

Assistant Professor of the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Duke University on October 24, 2025 at 10:15 AM in EB2 1231
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Xiaoyue Ni is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science and Biostatistics & Bioinformatics at Duke University, where she is working on wearable electronics for continuous, noninvasive monitoring of human body mechanics and tissue-level diagnosis. She also develops programmable metastructures for robotic materials. She received her Ph.D. degree in Materials Science from the California Institute of Technology in 2017, where she worked on nanomechanics focusing on resolving fundamental physics of dislocation-mediated plasticity. She received her M.S. degree in Materials Science from Caltech in 2014. She holds a B.S. degree in Physics and Mathematics with a Minor in Economics from Marietta College in 2012.

This lecture series features exciting and dynamic visiting and virtual speakers from across the range of ECE disciplines. Take some time every Friday morning to be inspired by these great scientists and engineers before heading into the weekend!