About

Dr. Munehiko Sato is a researcher, engineer, inventor and designer working to redefine the human relationship with the physical and digital worlds. At MIT Media Lab, where he serves as a Camera Culture Group researcher, he explores the concept of person-object/computer interaction to create novel sensing technologies that allow people to experience the world in ways that they had never imagined possible. His most recent work involves creating effective methods of recognizing exotic materials commonly found in daily lives, such as glass and transparent plastic, for ubiquitous and wearable computing. His achievements also include devising schemes for gathering and interpreting information from human bodies and the living environment for ubiquitous computing, personal healthcare, security, and many other applications. Over the years, Dr. Sato has pioneered technologies that can enrich human lives, drawing upon his background in computer science and mechanical and electrical engineering to design mechanisms that are conducive to commercialization. Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing (Touche), on which he worked as a lab associate at the Interaction Group of Disney Research in Pittsburgh under the leadership of Dr. Ivan Poupyrev, received the best paper award at the Association for Computing Machinery Computer-Human Interaction (ACM CHI) 2012 conference.

His work has been featured in such publications as Forbes, Time, Wired, MIT Tech Review, The Verge, Engadget, DesignBoom, Fox News, Popular Science, NewScientist, Tech Crunch, Hack A Day, and Creative Applications.

Having received his Ph.D. in engineering, M.S. in information science and technology, and B.E. in mechanical engineering from the University of Tokyo in 2013, 2009 and 2006 respectively, Dr. Sato has also worked at Helsinki University of Technology in 2006-2007 as part of a 3D virtual reality research group under the supervision of Prof. Tapio Takala.

Patents

2014

One U.S. provisional patent application filed (lead inventor at MIT)

2014

One U.S. patent filed US 20150330905 A1 (lead inventor at MIT. Patent granted US9482622B2)

2013

One U.S. patent issued US 9341659 B2 (co-inventor at Disney)

2013

One Japanese patent application submitted 2014-215616 (co-inventor at the University of Tokyo)

Invited lectures and talks (selected)

2016

Bay Area SID conference, Sunnyvale, CA

2015

The 22nd International Display Workshops, Otsu, Shiga, Japan.

2015

Art, Science and Technology Center for Cooperative Research, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. May

2015

Olympus R&D, Tokyo, Japan. April

2014

Rakuten Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan. June

2013

Spicebox, Tokyo, Japan. January

2012

Dentsu New School, Tokyo, Japan. November

2012

Autodesk Research, Toronto, Canada. October

2012

MIT media lab, Cambridge, USA. October

2012

Columbia University, New York, USA. September

2012

“世界を目指せ！ ~トップコンファレンス採択論文紹介~”, The 17th Annual Conference of the Virtual Reality Society of Japan, Keio University, Japan

2012

“Touché: Enhancing Touch Interaction on Humans, Screens, Liquids, and Everyday Objects”, FXPAL, Palo Alto, USA. August

2012

Guest talk, 第7回CHI勉強会 All.CHI, 明治大学, Japan

2012

Interactive Media Division Forum, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA.

2012

“Touché: Enhancing Touch Interaction on Humans, Screens, Liquids, and Everyday Objects”, Disney Research Boston, Boston, USA.

2011

Lecture on Prototyping, MsHCI, HCII, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.

2011

Dorkbot pgh, Brillobox, Pittsburgh, USA.

2010

Brown Bag Lectures “Trends in Digital Art”, AI lab, Department of Informatics, Univ. of Zurich, Switzerland.

2010

Disney Research Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.

Interviews

2012

テレビブロス(東京ニュース通信社) 2012年11月24日号, わらしべマッドサイエンティスト 第69回
”「なんでもインターフェース」世の中全体を壮大なタッチパネルにする研究”

2012

WIRED Japanese Edition TECHNOLOGY, “Disney Researchで次世代タッチセンサー「Touché」開発に携わった東大大学院生”

2012

ダイヤモンド・オンライン 現場力を伸ばす先端IT活用の鉄則, “あの「トゥーチェ」だけではなかった!!
ディズニー・リサーチの「魔法」のあれやこれやを開発者の佐藤さんに聞いてきた”

2012

エンジニアType, “Disney Researchで次世代タッチセンサー『Touché』開発に携わった東大大学院生が描く、デバイスレスな世界”

Academic Activities

Associate Chair

2016

ACM CHI (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) Late-Breaking Work

Invited Reviewers

JOURNALS/MAGAZINES

2013

IEEE Spectrum November

2013

IEEE CGA (Computer Graphics and Applications)

2012

Elsevier Interacting with Computers (The interdisciplinary journal of Human-Computer Interaction)

2011

ACM Computers in Entertainment (CiE)

CONFERENCES

2016

ACM CHI (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

2015

ACM ITS (International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces)

2015

ACM UIST (Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology)

2015

ACM UbiComp (International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing)

2015

ACM CHI (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

2015

ACM AH (Augmented Human International Conference)

2014

ACM CHI (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

2014

ACM UbiComp (International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing)

2014

IEEE ISMAR (International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality)

2014

ACM AH (Augmented Human International Conference)

2013

ACM CHI (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

2013

IEEE WHC (World Haptics Conference)

2013

IEEE GCCE (Global Conference on Consumer Electronics)

2012

IEEE ISMAR (International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality)

2012

ACM UIST (Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology)

2012

ACM DIS (Designing Interactive Systems)

2012

IEEE Haptics Symposium

2012

ACM APCHI (Asia Pacific Conference on Computer Human Interaction)

2010

ACM ACE (Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology)

RESEARCH GRANTS

2013

NASA SC EPSCoR/IDeA awards

Membership

• ACM
• Virtual Reality Society of Japan

Honors/Awards

2014

MIT $100K ACCELERATE business contest 2014 finalist

2013

First Prize for Botanicus Interacticus project Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award 2013 (NUMA) (collaborator.)

2012

Best Paper Award, ACM CHI 2012 Conference, Austin, TX, May, 2012.

2010

Good Design Award 2010, “Constellation of Departure”, English/日本語

2008

ACM Student Research Competition Semi-Finalist,
“Particle display system: a real world display with physically distributable pixels,” ACM CHI 2008 Conference, April, 2008.

Public Demonstrations/Exhibitions

2010

“Constellation of Departure (出発の星座)” model exhibited (模型展示), Information Processing of Japan 50th anniversary 72nd national conference of IPSJ (情報処理学会創立50周年記念全国大会), 本郷, Tokyo, Japan, March 9 – March 10, 2010.

2010

“Constellation of Departure (出発の星座)”, Digital Public Art Exhibition “Air Harbor”, Haneda Airport, Tokyo, Japan, October 9, 2009 – January 11, 2010.
Planning: Yasuhiro Suzuki
System: Munehiko Sato, Shinya Nishizaka, Yusuke Torigoe, Atsushi Izumihara
LED wiring: Munehiko Sato, Intern Staff
Cooperation: Avago Technologies (LED), Tokyo Electron Device (LED), National Semiconductor Japan (LED Driver IC)

2009

“Constellation on the Ground (地上の星座)”, Digital Public Art Exhibition “Air Harbor”, Haneda Airport, Tokyo, Japan, October 9 – November 3, 2009.
Planning: Yasuhiro Suzuki
System: Kunihiro Nishimura, Yusuke Torigoe, Munehiko Sato

2009

“Constellation of Chair (星に座る椅子)”, Digital Public Art Exhibition “Air Harbor”, Haneda Airport, Tokyo, Japan, October 9 – November 3, 2009.
Planning: Yasuhiro Suzuki
System: Kim Junghyun, Munehiko Sato
Cooperation:Mechanical Engineering Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd.

2008

Digita Public Art Project + Hirose-Tanikawa Lab. + Kunihiro Nishimura + Takuji Narumi + Munehiko Sato + Kotaro Hashimoto, “Sharelog::F”, Shinjuku Takashimaya Restaurants Park (新宿高島屋レストランズパーク), Tokyo, Japan, June 11 – July 15, 2008.