Dr Cesar Torres Jr

[Dr Cesar Armando Torres Jr]

Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering

Last Updated: August 4, 2021

about me

Research Interests

Interactive Systems: Smart Environments, Smart Tools, Digital Ethnography, Digital Fabrication, Smart Materials, Embedded Systems; New Media

Research Keywords

Human-Computer Interaction, Physical Computing, Digital Fabrication, Creativity, New Media

Teaching Interests

Human-Computer Interaction; Physical Computing; Digital Fabrication; Design Tools

Biography

Dr. Cesar Torres is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington, with a courtesy appointment in Art and Art History. He serves as the Director of The Hybrid Atelier, an interdisciplinary creative technology research lab in collaboration with the Art + Art History Deparment. As a researcher, he specializes in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with interests in computational design, physical computing, digital fabrication, creativity support tools, and human-centered design.

Education

- 2019 PhD in Computer Science
  University of California Berkeley
- 2013 BA in Art Practice
  Stanford University
- 2013 BS in Computer Science
  Stanford University

Appointments

- May 2015 to Sept 2015 Research Intern
  Creative Technologies Lab (CTL), Adobe Systems (San Francisco, CA, United States)
  Supervisor: Wilmot Li

Memberships

- June 2015 to Present Association for Computing Machinery
  
  The Association for Computing Machinery is an international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947, and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membership group, claiming nearly 100,000 student and professional members as of 2019.

Awards and Honors

- Jul 2019 Rising STARS Award sponsored by UT System
- Sep 2018 Disseration Grant Award sponsored by Microsoft Research
- Apr 2017 Best Paper Award sponsored by ACM SIGCHI
- Dec 2014 Graduate Fellowship sponsored by National Science Foundation
- Apr 2013 Best Paper Award sponsored by ACM SIGCHI

Support & Funding

This data is entered manually by the author of the profile and may duplicate data in the Sponsored Projects section.

- June 2021 to May 2023 CRII: HCC: Sustaining Cognitive Flow in Physical Making sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF) - $174978
  Cesar Torres (Funded)
- Sept 2021 to Aug 2022 Towards a Virtual User for Training Design Thinking Interview Skills sponsored by University of Texas at Arlington - $20000
  (Funded)

Publications

2016

Journal Article
LiveObjects: leveraging theatricality for an expressive internet of things
[Torres, Cesar, O'leary, Jasper, Paulos, Eric].

2020

Conference Proceeding
Siloseam: A Morphogenetic Workflow for the Design and Fabrication of Inflatable Silicone Bladders
[Moradi, Hedieh, Torres, Cesar]. Designing Interactive Systems. Eindhoven: "ACM". DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3357236.3395473
https://doi.org/10.1145/3357236.3395473

2019

Conference Proceeding
A Conversation with Actuators: An Exploratory Design Environment for Hybrid Materials
Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction
[Torres, Cesar, Nicholas, MollyJane, Lee, Sangyeon, Paulos, Eric]. 657--667.

Conference Proceeding
Hybrid Microgenetic Analysis: Using Activity Codebooks to Identify and Characterize Creative Process
Proceedings of the 2019 on Creativity and Cognition
[Torres, Cesar, J\"orke, Matthew, Hill, Emily, Paulos, Eric]. 2--14.

Conference Proceeding
Phosphenes: Crafting Resistive Heaters within Thermoreactive Composites
Proceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference
[Torres, Cesar, Chang, Jessica, Patel, Advaita, Paulos, Eric]. 907--919.

2018

Conference Proceeding
Guardians of Practice: A Contextual Inquiry of Failure-Mitigation Strategies within Creative Practices
Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference
[Torres, Cesar, Sterman, Sarah, Nicholas, Molly, Lin, Richard, Pai, Eric, Paulos, Eric]. 1259--1267.

Conference Proceeding
Hybrid Aesthetics: Design of New Media Practices within Digital Fabrication
Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems
[Torres, Cesar]. 355--358.

2017

Conference Proceeding
Illumination aesthetics: Light as a creative material within computational design
Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
[Torres, Cesar, O'Leary, Jasper, Nicholas, Molly, Paulos, Eric]. 6111--6122.

2016

Conference Proceeding
Aesthetic electronics: Designing, sketching, and fabricating circuits through digital exploration
Proceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology
[Lo, Joanne, Torres, Cesar, Yang, Isabel, O'Leary, Jasper, Kaufman, Danny, Li, Wilmot, Dontcheva, Mira, Paulos, Eric]. 665--676.

Conference Proceeding
Digital craftsmanship: HCI takes on technology as an expressive medium
Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems
[Jacobs, Jennifer, Mellis, David, Zoran, Amit, Torres, Cesar, Brandt, Joel, Tanenbaum, Joshua]. 57--60.

Conference Proceeding
Proxyprint: Supporting crafting practice through physical computational proxies
Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
[Torres, Cesar, Li, Wilmot, Paulos, Eric]. 158--169.

2015

Conference Proceeding
Fl. UIs: Liquid-mediated vision based touch surfaces
Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction
[Campbell, Tim, Torres, Cesar, Paulos, Eric]. 85--88.

Conference Proceeding
HapticPrint: Designing feel aesthetics for digital fabrication
Proceedings of the 28th annual ACM symposium on user interface software \& technology
[Torres, Cesar, Campbell, Tim, Kumar, Neil, Paulos, Eric]. 583--591.

Conference Proceeding
MetaMorphe: Designing expressive 3D models for digital fabrication
Proceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Creativity and Cognition
[Torres, Cesar, Paulos, Eric]. 73--82.

2013

Conference Proceeding
Webzeitgeist: design mining the web
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
[Kumar, Ranjitha, Satyanarayan, Arvind, Torres, Cesar, Lim, Maxine, Ahmad, Salman, Klemmer, ScottR, Talton, JerryO]. 3083--3092.

2012

Technical Report
Learning structural semantics for the web
[Lim, M, Kumar, R, Satyanarayan, A, Torres, C, Talton, JO, Klemmer, SR]. "Tech. rep. CSTR 2012-03. Stanford University".

Presentations

- July 2020
  Torres, CesarArmando, "Creativity Support Tools", Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Virtual). (July 19, 2020).

Students Supervised

- Present
  Undergraduate Supervised Research
  Ivan Jaimes, (Computer Science and Engineer)
  Embedded Glass: Circuits On Stained Glass Art
- Present
  Other
  Shreyosi Endow, (Computer Science and Engineer)
  Ph.D. Advisor
- Present
  Other
  Akib Zaman, (Computer Science and Engineer)
  Ph.D. Advisor
- Present
  Master's Thesis Committee Chair
  Hedieh Moradi, (Computer Science and Engineer)
- Jan 2020
  Graduate Supervised Research
  Hedieh Moradi, Submitted and accepted to ACM Designing Interactive Systems 2020. (Computer Science and Engineer)
  Siloseam: Design and Fabrication of Silicone Bladders

Courses

Service to the University

- Dec 2020 to Present Committee Member
  
  McNair Scholar Selection Committee
  Review McNair Scholars applications for UTA and participate in selecting annual undergraduate research scholars at the University level.
- Aug 2020 to Present Faculty Advisor
  
  Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers
- July 2020 to Present Committee Member
  
  College of Engineering Diversity & Inclusion Committee
- Feb 2020 to Mar 2020 Workshop Organizer
  
  MyCS@DFW Workshop
  Hosted a 12-hr workshop for improving participation in CS by women.
  
  http://hybridatelier.uta.edu/events/1-forming-wearables:-sewable-circuits-and-computational-textiles

Service to the Profession

- May 2020 to Present
  Associate Chair (Pictorials Track) (Venice, Italy)
  ACM Creativity & Cognition
  Coordinate reviews for C&C2021 Pictorials submission track. Review and offer recommendation for acceptance or rejection to conference proceedings.
- Aug 2019 to Present
  Associate Chair, Papers Committee (Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
  ACM Designing Interactive Systems 2020 Conference
- Sept 2020 to May 2021
  Program OrganizerTexas,
  TxHCI Seminar
  Created and organized Texas-wide seminar series to promote HCI research in Texas (in collaboration with UT Austin and Texas A&M).

Faculty & Staff Resources