Simon Olberding received his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Saarland University. He holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Computer Science, with a major in Human Computer Interaction, from Darmstadt University of Technology. During his Master studies, Simon spent eight months at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, CA. During his PhD, he spent nine months at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, USA. Simon’s work received best paper awards at one of the top tier conferences in the field of Human Computer Interaction. His work was selected as “Landmark 2015” (Ausgezeichneter Ort 2015) in the Germany Land of Ideas competition.



Simon’s interests center around novel user interfaces for digital fabrication. He envisions highly expressive and easy-to-use interfaces that enable everybody to design and fabricate custom objects with integrated functionality. In the past, Simon worked intensively with Printed Electronics as enabling technology for creating thin-film UIs that contain personalized touch-input and display output capabilities.