Hello and love from Yokohama!

This year, we have such a good time at CHI 2025. Big thanks to everyone who stopped by our paper sessions, poster and demo! We were proud to present four exciting projects involving our members:

Conversational Agents to Support People with Communication Disability: A Co-design Study with Speech Pathologists
https://doi.org/10.1145/3706599.3719800

Playing with Yourself: How Electrical Muscle Stimulation Can Turn Your Body Into A Playful Interface
https://doi.org/10.1145/3706599.3721338

GastroConcerto: Towards Designing Auditory Dining System to Enrich Chefs’ Culinary Practices
https://doi.org/10.1145/3706599.3719700

Towards Understanding Interactive Sonic Gastronomy with Chefs and Diners
https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3714237

Congratulations to Rakesh Patibanda, one of the former Materialising Memories PhD students now PostDoc, who has been awarded the 2024 Vice-Chancellor’s Commendation for Thesis Excellence by Monash University.

Rakesh’s doctoral thesis, “Body-Actuating Play: Towards Understanding the Design of Play Where Users Share Bodily Control with a Computer”, was recognised for its outstanding contribution to the field. This commendation represents one of the highest academic honours at Monash, showcasing the calibre and impact of his research.

We’re incredibly proud of this achievement. Well done, Rakesh!