Hariri Institute and AIR Initiative Distinguished Seminar

Speaker: William T. Freeman is the Thomas and Gerd Perkins Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT. Since 2015, he has also been a research manager in Google Research in Cambridge, MA. His research interests are computer vision, computational photography and AI for science. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the IEEE, ACM, and AAAI.

Talk Title: The support zipper and its applications to portable structures and robotics

Abstract: "With the help of others, I recently completed a 40-year-long project. Some time ago, I had developed a zipper with a novel function: it becomes a rigid structural support when zipped, and is flexible, like an ordinary zipper, when unzipped. Applications can include portable structures, such as tents, where the zipper would replace tent poles, or portable chairs and medical devices. I'll describe the journey of that invention, including the making of prototypes, entrepreneurship, and technological change over time. Recently, working with Jiaji Li, Maxine Perroni-Scharf, Xiang Chang, Mingming Li, Jeremy Mrzyglocki, Takumi Yamamoto, Dingning Cao, and Stefanie Mueller, all of MIT, we enhanced and completed the zipper project, and the work will appear in ACM CHI, Barcelona, April, 2026."

When 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm on 24 March 2026
Building 665 Commonwealth Ave.
Room 1750
Contact Name Maria Yaitanes
Contact Email myaitan@bu.edu
Contact Organization Hariri Institute
Fees free
Open To public
Speakers William T. Freeman