Jiabao Li is an artist and Associate Professor at Northeastern University (Oakland, CA). She was an Assistant Professor at UT Austin and a Visiting Professor at Stanford. She creates works addressing climate change, interspecies co-creation, humane technology, and perceptions. Her mediums include wearable, robot, AR/VR, performance, scientific experiment, installation. In Jiabao’s TED Talk, she uncovered how technology mediates the way we perceive reality.
Jiabao is the recipient of numerous awards, including Forbes China 30 Under 30, iF Design Award, Falling Walls, NEA, STARTS Prize, Fast Company, Core77, IDSA, A’ Design Award, Webby Award, and Outstanding Instructor Award. Her work has been exhibited internationally, at Venice Architecture Biennale, MoMA, Ars Electronica, Exploratorium, Future of Today Biennial, Shenzhen Biennial, Macao Biennial, Milan and Dubai Design Week, The Contemporary Austin, Ming Contemporary Museum, OCAT, Museum of Design. Her academic papers have been published in top conferences and journals including SIGGRAPH, CHI, ISEA, IEEE VIS. Her work has been featured on Fast Company, Art Forum, Business Insider, Bloomberg, Yahoo, South China Morning Post, TechCrunch, Domus, Yanko Design, Harvard Political Review, The National, Leonardo. Her solo exhibitions include “You Can’t Fire Your Mom”, “Chill Out: The Arctic Couldn’t”, “Progenitorial Hysteresis”, “Perception Omnifold”, and “Ecological Soup: Interspecies Encounters”.
She serves on juries for major design awards such as IDSA, D&AD, Biodesign Challenge, SIGGRAPH. She is co-founder and chief design officer of Endless Health and previously of Snapi Health. In her four years at Apple, she invented and explored new technologies for future products, including the Apple Vision Pro. She is a member of NEW INC Creative Science at the New Museum and Onassis Foundation, a Fellow at Ars Electronica Founding lab, an expert consultant at Tencent, and an artist-in-residence at Exploratorium. She graduated from Harvard GSD with Distinction and thesis award.
Research/Publications Highlights
Jiabao Li’s research bridges art, design, extended reality, AI, biotechnology, and multispecies studies. Her work asks how technology can reframe perception, expand human understanding of non-human intelligence, and create more equitable futures for health and planetary care. Across immersive installations, speculative bio-art, startups, and critical design interventions, she develops technologies and experiences that move between cultural critique and real-world application. Her work has been published and presented at leading venues including SIGGRAPH, CHI, ISEA, IEEE VIS, ACM Interactions, Leonardo.
Departments
Art + Design
Education
- Harvard GSD, Master of Design in Technology
- National University of Singapore, Bachelor of Electrical Engineering
Awards
- Forbes China 30 Under 30
- Falling Walls, in Art & Science
- AUREA Award
- STARTS Prize Nomination, Ars Electronica
- Outstanding Instructor Award
- Core77 Design Award
- Webby Award Nomination
- A’ Design Award
- Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award
- IF Design Award
Research Focus
- Multispecies Design
- Planetary Health
- Human Health
- Speculative BioArt
- Extended Reality
- AI and Perception
Courses Taught
- Ecocentric Design: Multispecies Futures
- Biodesign: Speculative Futures
- Interaction Design
- AI Playground