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!

Publications

Marwa AlAlawi, Regina Zheng, Sooyeon Ahn, Katherine Yan, Ticha Sethapakdi , Junyi Zhu* , Stefanie Mueller*.
"Meta-antenna: Mechanically Frequency Reconfigurable Metamaterial Antennas"
In Proceedings of UIST 2025.

DOI Project Page Video MIT News

Mehmet Ozdemir, Marwa AlAlawi , Mustafa Doga Dogan, Jose Francisco Martinez Castro, Stefanie Mueller & Zjenja Doubrovski.
“Speed-Modulated Ironing: A Method for High-Resolution Shade and Texture Gradients in Single-Material 3D Printing"
In Proceedings of UIST 2024. [ BEST DEMO NOMINEE 🏅]

DOI Project Page Video MIT News

Marwa AlAlawi , Noah Pacik-Nelson, Junyi Zhu, Ben Greenspan, Andrew Doan, Brandon Wong, Benjamin Owen-Block, Shanti Mickens, Wilhelm Schoeman, Michael Wessely, Andreea Danielescu & Stefanie Mueller
“MechSense: A Design and Fabrication Pipeline for Integrating Rotary Encoders into 3D Printed Mechanisms"
In Proceedings of CHI 2023.

DOI Project Page Video MIT News

Marwa AlAlawi, Kexin Wang, Regina Zheng, Adelene Chan, Martin Feick & Stefanie Mueller
"Ori-TENG: 3D Printed Origami Tessellations as Triboelectric Nanogenerators for Self-powered Sensing and Energy Harvesting",”
In Proceedings UIST'25 Adjunct, September 2025

DOI Video

Doga Ozbek, Marwa AlAlawi & Michael Wessely
"AcceloPrint: Fabricating Customizable Accelerometers with Multi-Material 3D Printing",”
In Proceedings of CHI Extended Abstracts, April 2025

DOI

Doga Ozbek, Marwa AlAlawi, Till Max Eckroth & Michael Wessely
“Demonstration of AcceloPrint: Fabricating Accelerometers with Multi-Material 3D Printing,”
SCF 2024 Adjunct, July 2024

DOI

Marwa AlAlawi & Brandon Wong,
“LeviCircuits: Adhoc Electrical Circuit Prototyping using Ultrasound Levitation,”
UIST 2022 Adjunct, SIC, October 2022

DOI PDF Video Preview

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)

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.

Moments to Share! (in progress 🚧)

Actuated Xperiences '25

Group photo with the advanced section of the Actuated Xperiences class I designed and led with Yunyi Zhu

CPISP

I am the recipient of the Bahrain Crown Prince Scholarship (2014-current)

First Place (6th Annual Korean Speech Contest)

I was awarded first place in the 6th Annual New England Korean Speech Contest hosted by the Korean Consulate of Boston

My Comic Book (Research, Reflections & Rants)

A picture with the printed copies of my comic book on MIT graduate student experiences

Japanese Guest Liasion

I have been a Japanese guest liasion (translate for and guide Japanese guests ) for Anime Boston since 2023. Guests include manga artists and musical performers.