Artist & Medical Prototyping Lab Lead
Dr. Aisen Caro Chacin is an artist and the medical prototyping lab lead at the University of Texas Medical Branch. She holds a BFA in sculpture and a minor in visual studies from the University of Houston (UH), where she is an Affiliate Faculty of New Media Arts. She has an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons, The New School, NYC, where she was an Adjunct Professor of Physical and Creative Computing. She created a framework for assistive technology and Device Art while attaining her Ph.D. in Human Informatics at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. She is the Chair for LASER Houston, a series of art and science talks sponsored by Leonardo, IAST, and Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology, and she is also a Board Member of the Medicine and Media Arts Program at UCLA.
Her work lies within the intersection of art, science, and technology, with focus on new media art, human-computer integration, medical devices, and Assistive Device Art. Her work includes interfaces for sensory substitution, human-echolocation, haptics, emergency ventilation, sound art, materializing patient data for surgical procedures, and adaptive fashion.
She has presented and exhibited at Ars Electronica, Cite du Design, TEI, NIME, NYC Museum of Art and Design, The New York Hall of Science, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, World of Haptics, among others. She has been featured as an inventor in Future Tech by Discovery Channel, Creative Applications, FastCo, Time Techland, Engadget, NYTimes, and was awarded and published by PopSci.
Dr. Aisen Caro Chacin is co-founder of ACZ Labs, a partnership with post-NASA engineer, pathology professor, Dr. Christopher Zahner. Their inventions touch all aspects of the hospital environment such as sample tracking data networks, blood mixing devices for NICU patients, nociception-repressant vibration devices, transfusion tracking systems, and lately, the pressure cuff emergency ventilator. Their enthusiasm to solve problems in complex systems such as healthcare brings them together to simplify and rethink how to better care.
