Nikolas Martelaro

Hi, I'm Nik. I am an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. My research seeks to augment designers' capabilities so that we can best leverage human capacity and computation to solve society's toughest problems. My research approach integrates cutting-edge technologies, but always with a foundational understanding of designers and how we think and act. This research activity informs my educational mission to teach future designers how to work creatively and critically so they can solve complex, open-ended design challenges. My work spans design domains, blending hardware, software, and interaction design. Before moving to the HCII, I was a researcher in the Digital Experiences group at the Accenture Technology Labs. I graduated with my Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford's Center for Design Research, where I was co-advised by Larry Leifer and Wendy Ju. I graduated with my B.S. in Engineering Design from the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.

News

[29 Nov 2024] I gave an invited talk on Building to See, Building to Act: Creating Interactive Devices to Help You Observe and Prototype Interactions In-the-Wild as part of the CMU Portugal Academy. Thank you to Agusto Esteves for inviting me.

[12 Nov 2024] David Widder presented our paper Power and Play: Investigating 'License to Critique' in Teams AI Ethics Discussions at CSCW 2024 in San Jose, Costa Rica.

[22 Oct 2024] I moderated the Reflective Pactices with AI session at the Halfway to the Future Symposium in Santa Cruz, CA. I enjoyed conversations considering the history of computing and design and how we might build future design practice. See the full proceedings on the ACM Digital Library.

[11 Oct 2024] I gave an invited talk on Augmenting Designer Capabilities as part of the Human-Centered Computing Seminar Series at the University of Minnesota. Thank you Prof. Harmanpreet Kaur for hosting me.

Current Research Interests

Human-AI collaboration to support deeper design thought, with a focus on reflective practice, designerly questioning, diagrammatic thinking, and analogical thinking.

Tools to help creatives work better, with foci on systems for generating design artifacts and support for running successful creative businesses.

Collaborative design methods to engage end-users throughout design and engineering processes, with a focus on participatory field studies and simulation-based activities for designing automated physical systems.

Working With Me

Prospective Students

Students interested in the HCII Ph.D. program should apply during the next cycle in autumn. The HCII admits students at the department level. Students are then matched with faculty advisors in their first weeks on campus. If you are interested in joining my group, you are welcome to mention me in your application. I also recommend that you look into other faculty you might be interested in working with and mention them in your application. Consider why you would like to work with these faculty, what you think you can bring to their group, and what you think they could bring to your research.

Student interested in the Masters in Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) should direct their questions to the program director. Please note that our Masters program is a 1-year professional degree that prepares students for industry and is not a research-oriented program. This being said, MHCI students are welcome to join my research group for Independent Studies.

CMU Students

If you are a CMU student interested in working on one of my group's research projects, please check the HCII Independent Study list for open positions and the desired skills. My group posts new positions at the start of each semester.

If you are a student entrepreneur interested in feedback or advising for your venture, you are welcome to reach out to me via email.

Publications

Please see my Google Scholar page for my most up to date publication list.

Teaching

[Spring 2025] Rapid Prototpying of Computer Systems

[Fall 2024] Design of AI Products & Services

Colophon

This webpage is styled using Tufte CSS. The font used is ET Book. Content is authored by Nikolas Martelaro with support from Microsoft Copilot and GitHub Copilot.