Craig Shultz & Joe Mullenbach
Co-Founders of Fluid Reality
Website: Fluid Reality
Related Sense: Touch
Craig Shultz: Craig is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois College of Engineering and co-founder of Fluid Reality. He specializes in interactive embedded systems and haptic actuation. His work has won 6 best paper awards and nominations at premiere ACM and IEEE venues and has been featured in venues such as NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, TechCrunch, and Engadget.
Before UIUC and Fluid Reality, Craig finished his post-doc at the Future Interfaces Group at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, and was the VP of Research and Development at Tanvas, where he developed novel electroadhesive touchscreens based on his work in surface haptics at Northwestern University’s Center for Robotics and Biosystems.
Joe Mullenbach: Joe Mullenbach has spent his career focused on the physical interface between human and machine. A researcher and technologist in the field of haptics, Joe is co-founder and CEO of Fluid Reality, a technology startup producing the first practical high resolution tactile displays to let humans feel what robots feel in teleoperation. Fluid Reality technology imprints small bubbles into the skin, providing instant understanding of contact location, edges, orientation, and pressure. This work has been honored with numerous awards including as a Fast Company Innovation by Design Honoree 2024. Joe was an early employee at haptic touchscreen startup Tanvas, and holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University.
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