Marwa AlAlawi

Updates

• August 2025 My paper, "Meta-antenna:Frequency-Reconfigurable Meta-material Antenna" has been accpeted to #UIST2025 (Busan, South Korea) and featured as a spotlight piece in MIT News! (Article)
• July 2025 I taught a STEAM Workshop in Japanese at Kesennuma City with the MIT Japan Program
• June 2025 I have started my internship as a visiting research student at the Univerity of Tokyo with Professor Yasuaki Kakehi
• June 2025 My comic book "Research, Reflections, and Rants" is printed and out! (Online Verison)
• April 2025 I participated in #CHI2025 (Yokohama, Japan) Doctoral Consortium and presented my PhD work on "Hybrid Functional Identities of Mechanical Elements" (Paper)
• March 2025 I earned first place (beginner track) in the New England's 6th Annual Korean Speech Competition organized by the Korean Consulate
• January 2025 I am interviewed by Bahrain National Television on my class Actuated Xperiences (Interview).
• March 2025 My first interactive art exhibition "interwoven", with Sara Wilson and Supreetha Krishnan is invited to exhibit at MIT Artfinity in the MIT Musuem ( Article)
• December 2025 I designed and developed an HCI & Fabrication class (Actuated Xperiences) with Yunyi Zhu for MIT Bahrain GTL & the American University of Bahrain (Class Website).
• October 2025 We launch "Interwoven" exhibition at the Weisner Gallery at MIT (Article)
• September 2025 I have started learning Korean & Chinese
• April 2024 I am the recepient of the MIT Chancellor's Innovation Fund to work on an MIT Grad Student Comic Book
• October 2024 Along with Sara Wilson & Supreetha Krishnan, we recieve the MIT Council of the Arts Fund to work on our first interactive exhibition, Interwoven!
• October 2024 "Speed Modulated Ironing" is a BEST Demo Nominee (People's Choice) 🏅
• September 2024 "Speed Modulated Ironing", a joint publication with TU Delft has been accepted to #UIST2025 (Pittsburgh, USA)
• August 2024 I taught a STEM Workshop in Japanese at Kesennuma City with MIT Japan!
• February 2024 I passed my Mechanical Engineering qualifying exams and am officially a PhD candidate!.
• April 2023 I am the recipient of the MIT MISTI Ambassador Award 2023 (nominated by MIT Japan and MIT Arab World) ( News Article )
• March 2023 MechSense has been featured on MIT News and other international news outlets! ( MIT News )
• January 2023 My paper "MechSense:A Design and Fabrication Pipeline for Integrating Rotary Encoders into 3D Printed Mechanisms" was accepted to #CHI2023 (Hamburg, Germany)!
• October 2022 I have launched MIT's first MISTI Bahrain program along with my partners Maryam Al Jomairi & Latifa Al Khayyat ( Bahrain News Agency, AUBH press release)
• October 2022 I will be demoing LeviCircuits at UIST 2022 & also serve as a student volunteer!

Show past

Publications

Exhibitions

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Books

Academic Paper Reviewing

The ACM CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems ( CHI'25)

Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology ( UIST'24, UIST'25)

International Conference on Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interaction(TEI'25, TEI'26)

ACM Designing Interactive Systems ( DIS'23, DIS'25)

ACM Symposium on Computational Fabrication (SCF'22, SCF'24 )

SIGGRAPH Posters ( SIGGRAPH'24)

Academic & Non-Academic Service

• ACM UIST 2022, In Person (Bend, Oregon), Student Volunteer
• MIT Graduate Association for Mechanical Engineering Women (Cambridge, MA), President
• MIT Bahrain Global Teaching Labs (GTL'23,'24,'25) (Riffa, Kingdom of Bahrain)
• Japanese Guest Liasion (Anime Boston'23,'24) (Boston, MA)

Teaching

Product Engineering Processes (MIT 2.009), Remote - Remote Teaching Assistant (August 2020 - December 2020)

• Developed concept art and design for virtual theme reveal stage, costume design, and 2D animation.
• Animation media release
• Costume design media release

MIT Toy Product Design (2.00b), Cambridge, MA- Undergraduate Teaching Assistant (FBRUARY 2020 - May 2020) & (FBRUARY 2022 - May 2022))

• Mentored a team of six MIT undergraduate students on toy design ideation and fabrication.
• Guided 30+ undergraduate students with running shop machines and electronics (until March due to COVID-19).

MIT International Science and Technology Initiative, Amman, Jordan- Team Leader & Instructor (January 2020 - February 2020)

• Developed and taught a monthlong high school STEM curriculum focusing on product design, with hands on workshops in Python, Arduino, UI/UX Design, and Unity for 120 students from the Amman Academy and Jubilee School in Jordan.

MehtA+ college level Machine Learning Bootcamp, online- Teaching Assistant (May 2020-August 2020)

• Mentored 8 students with machine learning projects for peer-reviewed academic paper and poster session. Projects include: Latin Translation with Machine Learning, Handwriting Recognition with Convolutional Neural Networks on Writings of George Washington.
• Taught and developed python recitation content for 40 students in online recitation format
• Projects Media Release

MIT Maker-spaces (Makerlodge, Makerworks), Cambridge, MA- Undergraduate mentor (September 2017 - Current)

• Trained MIT freshmen on shop machines (laser cutter, 3D printer, bandsaw, drill press, hand tools) through a two-day hands on project. (Makerlodge)
• Supervised and assisted MIT undergraduate and graduate students through several shop machines (laser cutter, 3D printer, vinyl cutter, desktop CNC mill for PCB fabrication) (Makerworks)

MIT Physics (8.01): MECHANICS I, Cambridge, MA- Undergraduate Teaching Assistant (September- December 2017)

• Directed and assisted more than 27 students with physics concepts by supervising in-class problem solving.
• Graded more than 27 student problem sets on weekly basis

Work Experience

REACT Neuro, Cambridge, USA (Remote)- XR Development Intern (DECEMBER 2020- APRIL 2021)

• Developed a VR breathing exercise experience with Unity for use on Pico Neo 2

GREE, Tokyo, Japan- XR Development Intern (JUNE - AUGUST 2018)

• Developed an eductional virtual reality game for Japan’s National Space Agency (JAXA) and GREE’s “Arienai” Kids Workshop using Unity and HTC VIVE.
• Voice-acted narrative for game support character, “Maru-Chan” in Japanese.

Past Projects (not updated 😅)