Katia Vega

Katia Vega
Resident

What if you could send a text by touching your hair? Or pay for coffee with your fingernail? Katia Vega always wondered why traditional beauty products and methods didn’t seem to change much over the decades, so she pursued a PhD in Computer Science at PUC-Rio (Brazil) and set out to discover how we can make our bodies interactive platforms. Currently faculty in the design department at UC Davis, Katia’s work has been featured by New Scientist, Wired, Discovery, and CNN, among others. At SXSW 2018, Katia won the Interactive Innovation award for her interactive installation, The Dermal Abyss, which replaced traditional tattoo ink with biosensors that shift colors in response to changes in our metabolism.

MIT Technology Review named Katia as one of the 5 Innovators under 35 in Peru. CNET recognized her as one of the Top 20 most influential Latinos in Tech.