News
Apr. 22, 2024 | Jas presented their work at PAC Lab (Cornell University). Thanks Tanzeem, Zhao, Tan, and the whole lab!
Apr. 19, 2024 | "Smell & Paste" announced as a finalist for the Sadakichi Award for Experimental Work with Scent. Read More
Apr. 18, 2024 | Jas is a guest speaker for the MAS.S62: Cognitive Augmentation course at MIT Media Lab. Thanks Pattie & Sam!
Mar. 26, 2024 | Jas passed their candidacy exam. Thanks to their committee: Pedro Lopes, Pattie Maes, Tanzeem Choudhury, & Ben Zhao! :)
Mar. 03, 2024 | Jas is a panelist for "Re-conceptualizing the experience of architecture as tangible object" at AIS Week 2024.
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Key Publications from PhD Thesis: Chemical Interfaces
ACM UIST 2023 Full Paper Taste Retargeting via Chemical Taste Modulators
Jas Brooks, Noor Amin, Pedro Lopes
🏵️ UIST Jury’s Honorable Mention for Best Demo
Taste retargeting selectively changes taste perception using taste modulators, chemicals that temporarily and selectively alter the response of taste receptors to subsequent foods and beverages. As our technique can be delivered as droplets before eating or drinking, taste retargeting is the first interactive method to selectively alter the basic tastes of real foods without obstructing...
ACM CHI 2023 Full Paper Smell & Paste: Low-Fidelity Prototyping for Olfactory Experiences
Jas Brooks, Pedro Lopes
🏵️ Finalist for 2024 Sadakichi Award (Art & Olfaction)
Low-fidelity prototyping is foundational to HCI. So, how do experts prototype olfactory experiences? We interviewed eight experts and found that they do not because no process supports this. Thus, we engineered Smell & Paste, a low-fidelity prototyping toolkit. Designers assemble olfactory proofs-of-concept by pasting scratch-and-sniff stickers onto a paper tape. Then, they test the interaction...
ACM UIST 2021 Full Paper Chemical Haptics: Rendering Haptic Sensations via Topical Stimulants
Jasmine Lu, Ziwei Liu, Jas Brooks, Pedro Lopes
We propose a new class of haptic devices that provide haptic sensations by delivering liquid-stimulants to the user’s skin; we call this chemical haptics. Upon absorbing these stimulants, receptors in the user’s skin are chemically triggered, rendering distinct haptic sensations. We identified five chemicals that can render lasting haptic sensations: tingling (sanshool), numbing (lidocaine), stinging...
ACM CHI 2021 Full Paper Stereo-Smell via Electrical Trigeminal Stimulation
Jas Brooks, Shan-Yuan Teng, Jingxuan Wen, Romain Nith, Jun Nishida, Pedro Lopes
🏵️ Innovation by Design Honorable Mention
We propose a novel type of olfactory device that creates a stereo-smell experience, i.e., directional information about the location of an odor, by rendering the readings of external odor sensors as trigeminal sensations using electrical stimulation of the user’s nasal septum. The key is that the sensations from the trigeminal nerve, which arise from nerve-endings...
ACM CHI 2020 Full Paper Trigeminal-Based Temperature Illusions
Jas Brooks, Steven Nagels, Pedro Lopes
🏆 CHI Best Paper Award (top 1%)
We explore a temperature illusion that uses low-powered electronics and enables the miniaturization of simple warm and cool sensations. Our illusion relies on the properties of certain scents, such as the coolness of mint or hotness of peppers. These odors trigger not only the olfactory bulb, but also the nose’s trigeminal nerve, which has receptors...
Additional Publications in HCI
IEEE VR 2024 Full Paper ThermalGrasp: Enabling Thermal Feedback even while Grasping and Walking
Alex Mazursky, Jas Brooks, Beza Desta, Pedro Lopes
Most thermal interfaces attach Peltier elements and their required cooling systems (heatsinks and fans) directly to the palm or sole, preventing users from grasping or walking. To solve this problem, we present ThermalGrasp, an engineering approach for wearable thermal interfaces that enables users to grab and walk on real objects with minimal obstruction. Our approach...
ACM CHI 2021 Full Paper Increasing Electrical Muscle Stimulation’s Dexterity by Means of Back-of-the-Hand Actuation
Akifumi Takahashi, Jas Brooks, Hiroyuki Kajimoto, Pedro Lopes,
🏆 CHI Best Paper Award (top 1%)
We improved the dexterity of the finger flexion produced by interactive devices based on electrical muscle stimulation (EMS). The key to achieve it is that we discovered a new electrode layout in the back of the hand. Instead of the existing EMS electrode placement, which flexes the fingers via the flexor muscles in the forearm,...
ACM CHI 2021 Full Paper Elevate: A Walkable Pin-Array for Large Shape-Changing Terrains
Seungwoo Je, Hyunseung Lim, Kongpyung Moon, Shan-Yuan Teng, Jas Brooks, Pedro Lopes, Andrea Bianchi
Existing shape-changing floors are limited by their tabletop scale or the coarse resolution of the terrains they can display due to the limited number of actuators and low vertical resolution. To tackle this, we engineered Elevate, a dynamic and walkable pin-array floor on which users can experience not only large variations in shapes but also...
Academic Service
Program Committee: CHI Papers (2024), UIST Papers (2022, 24), DIS Papers (2023-24), TEI Pictorials (2024), MUM Papers (2023).
Organizing Committee: UChicago Humanities UX (2022), SIGCHI Operations Committee (2021), AHs Social Media Chair (2021).
Session Chairing: Various sessions at CHI, UIST, and ECRO.
Peer Reviewing: I regularly review for conferences and journals (over 150 reviews since 2018). I received special recognition for outstanding reviews (formal distinction): three from ACM CHI, four from ACM UIST, one from IEEE WHC, and four from ACM DIS. I have reviewed for ACM CHI, ACM UIST, IEEE VR, IEEE WHC, ACM IMWUT, ACM CSCW, AHs, ACM DIS, Frontiers in VR, ACM IUI, SIGGRAPH Asia, ACM TEI, ACM VRST, ACM IMX, and IEEE Access.
Workshops, Panels, & Symposia
ACM CHI 2023 Panel Third Wave or Winter? The Past and Future of Smell in HCI
Participants: Jofish Kaye, Marianna Obrist, Judith Amores, Jas Brooks
We responded to the following thought: Scent technology has evolved from its use in 1960s cinema to internet peripherals in the '90s and early 2000s. With recent progress in integrating smell into Human-Computer Interaction, questions arise whether a third wave is commencing and if this field will persist or decline. The panel additionally featured a...
ACM CHI 2023 Workshop Smell, Taste, & Temperature Interfaces Workshop (STT23)
Organizers: Jas Brooks, Alireza Bahremand, Pedro Lopes, Christy Spackman, Judith Amores, Hsin-Ni Ho, Masahiko Inami, Simon Niedenthal
Third iteration of STT as a 1-day workshop at ACM CHI 2023 focused on hands-on demonstrations and sharing of methods within the community. Co-organized with Alireza Bahremand (ASU), Pedro Lopes (UChicago), Christy Spackman (ASU), Judith Amores (Microsoft Research), Hsin-Ni Ho (Kyushu University), Masahiko Inami (University of Tokyo), Simon Niedenthal (Malmö University), Jessica Lai (ASU), Mason...
ACM CHI 2021 Workshop Smell, Taste, & Temperature Interfaces Workshop (STT21)
Organizers: Jas Brooks, Pedro Lopes, Judith Amores, Emanuela Maggioni, Haruka Matsukura, Marianna Obrist, Roshan Peiris, Nimesha Ranasinghe
Second iteration of STT as a 3-day virtual workshop at ACM CHI 2021 focused on smell, taste, and temperature interfaces with invited artists. Co-organized with Pedro Lopes (UChicago), Judith Amores (MIT/Harvard), Emanuela Maggioni (UCL), Haruka Matsukura (Osaka University), Marianna Obrist (UCL), Roshan Lalintha Peiris (RIT), and Nimesha Ranasinghe (University of Maine).
University of Chicago Symposium Ada Lovelace Week 2020
Organizers: Jasmine Lu, Jas Brooks, Yujie Tao, Dasha Shifrina, Zoe Liu, Pedro Lopes
4-day symposium celebrating women and non-binary technologists from art, industry, and academia. Co-organized with Jasmine Lu, Yujie Tao, Dasha Shifrina, Zoe Liu, and Pedro Lopes.
Independent Symposium Smell, Taste, & Temperature Symposium (STT20)
Organizers: Jas Brooks & Pedro Lopes
First iteration of STT as a 1-day independent symposium showcasing CHI 2020 papers on smell, taste, and temperature interfaces. 255 people registered from over 33 countries across the world, with 152 people tuning in for the Smell Session, 93 for the Temperature Session, and 78 for the Taste Session. Co-organized with Pedro Lopes (UChicago).
Curation
2021 Online Scented Screenings & Talks Twitch and Sniff Along Series
🏵️ Finalist for 2022 Sadakichi Award (Art & Olfaction)
The “Twitch and Sniff Along” series spotlights video games that have incorporated scent as a modality. We’re presenting several historic games (and maybe new ones!) online and offer free mailed replicas of their scratch and sniff cards for educational purposes.
2020-2021 Online Scented Screenings & Talks Scent in Cinema Series
🏵️ Finalist for 2022 Sadakichi Award (Art & Olfaction)
Olfactory art, in particular scented cinema, has consistently been the brunt of dismissive humor. The “Scent in Cinema” series seeks to present works of scented cinema and provide critical discussions of this medium. The events include a virtual screening with mailed scratch and sniff cards followed by a moderated panel discussion with experts in the...
2020 Arts Festival Commiserate Media Art Festival
Commiserate is an art initiative that explores new ways and meanings of feeling in contemporary media art. Commiserate hosts an annual art festival to reflect on how we live, create, and entertain as artists across social and geopolitical boundaries.
Art & Design
2023 Scent Design TMNT Stink-O-Vision Track
Experience the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles like never before with a scent-sational viewing of their origin story. Umbrella Entertainment's special edition Blu-Ray release of the 1990 classic features scent direction by Tammy Burnstock and myself to accompany the Turtles' moments. Simply scratch the corresponding number on your scent card and join Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and...
2018-2021 Interactive Flavor Installation Perfect Melon
🏆 University of Chicago Arts Grant
Perfect Melon is a “community-building” marketing campaign from the fictional Perfect Melon beverage corporation, presented as an interactive installation. The corporation’s intention is not to simply sell a soft drink, but to cultivate a consumer community entirely mediated by the corporation. The marketing campaign involves a VR flavor experience, in which attendees enter a pavilion...
2021 Scented Game Mod Leather Goddesses of Phobos: Definitive Sniff Edition
As a gift for the Leather Goddesses of Phobos panelists of the Twitch and Sniff Along series, I produced a new "Definitive Sniff Edition" of the text-based adventure. The limited-edition included the mysterious cut 8th odor, two new fragrances hinted at in the original game, a fresh smell puzzle, and a new scratch-and-sniff card based...
2019-2020 Interactive Flavor Installation Download my food
Download my food was a flavor project that features two components. The first is an offline installation featuring vegan jellies in a mini-fridge with a computer set on top of the fridge. In an attempt to use crowd-sourcing as a means of digitizing the flavor information, visitors try a jelly and fill out a form...
2017 Interactive Scent Installation Sanitary selves
Sanitary selves is an olfactory VR installation celebrating and critiquing motion capture databases from the 2000s. Audiences engage with the project through immersive smell and sound and interact with the database in a virtual space. The project sought to question the sanitation and omission of identity markers in the databases, asking whether purely abstract movements...
2016 Scent Installation Big time sensibility
The installation explores the perceived synthetic emotions derived from traditional, domestic flower preservation. Flowers were cut from their stem, preserved in paraffin wax, and randomly reattached with botanist's tape. A thick paraffin blanket affixes the stems to the Pyrex dish. The flowers waft soft floral, powdery, and woody notes from the addition of Dior Homme.
2016 Short Musical Film Simulathon
🏆 University of Chicago's Dean's Fund
Marguerite, a young girl in high school, tapes her day at school as it tumbles into a progressively weirder world. Simulathon explores the notion of the simulacrum, particularly tackling the ambiguity and arbitrary nature of "humanity."
Educational Resources
Fall 2018 Graduate Course ATS 4135: Virtual Reality
Jas designed and taught a graduate-level studio course at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago focused on Virtual Reality and interactive immersive media. The course integrated theory-in-practice through VR assignments, exploring topics covered in readings like immersion, metaphors of space, simulation, and telepresence. The class met 6 hours per week with 14 students,...
2022-Present Online Archive Timeless Smell Archive
The Timeless Smell Archive is an online repository dedicated to the preservation and sharing of scented media. The site features a collection of scanned images, including scratch-and-sniff cards. The archive provides a resource for researchers, collectors, and enthusiasts interested in the intersection of smell and modern culture.
2020-2021 Dataset Scratch & Sniff Book Open Dataset
🏆 2021 Accelerator Award (Institute for Art & Olfaction)
A public dataset of scratch-and-sniff books, covering 134 titles published between 1970 and 2020. The dataset includes information on the smells used, their order, and other publication details. This dataset intended to serve as a resource for researchers, authors, and parents interested in purchasing, analyzing, or creating scratch-and-sniff books.
2019-2020 Sensory Education Community-Based Olfactory Research Group (CBORG)
🏆 Chicago Awesome Foundation grant
CBORG was a collaborative, roving research team dedicated to advancing sensory education and research in Chicago. By embracing the belief that smell is a valuable skill and a way of knowing often marginalized by systems of power, CBORG aimed to make sensory education more accessible and artistically impactful, fostering an environment where individuals can engage...