Interviews From Our Community

Gijs Huisman is Assistant Professor of embodied interaction at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. His main interest is in how our sense of touch plays a role in technology-mediated social interactions, in particular in shaping social presence, intimacy, and empathy. Gijs’ research is grounded in theories of embodied cognition that he applies to the research and design of digital/physical systems. Here, the role of the body in (social) interactions takes centre stage.

Before joining the IDE faculty, Gijs completed a PhD on Social Touch Technology at the University of Twente, a postdoc at the 4TU Centre for Humans and technology focussing on multi-sensory VR, co-founded a startup where he worked on the design of haptic products for social interactions, and coordinated work on digital/physical systems grounded in the Sustainable Development Goals at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences’ Digital Society School.