- Tangible Media
Shengyu Huang is an HCI researcher, design engineer, and AI entrepreneur exploring how people and AI can think, design, and create together. As a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Tangible Media Group at the MIT Media Lab, he investigates new forms of human–AI co-creation in design and creative practice through intelligent systems and multimodal interactive media. His research spans creative AI, wearable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), and spatial computing, examining how AI can respond to people through sensing and interaction in physical space. His current research on Generative Tangibility for Human–AI Co-Creation explores how bodies, objects, and spaces might become active participants in the creative process.
Before joining MIT, Huang was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, where he led research on generative neurointeractive media combining AI and brain–computer interfaces. This work grew out of his longstanding interest in human–AI collaboration, which he explored during his PhD in Design at Tsinghua University through the mechanisms and systems of creative design practice. His academic experience across Asia, Europe, and North America has brought perspectives from design, HCI, and systems engineering into his research. His work has appeared in Systems, npj Heritage Science, Sustainability, and other journals and conference proceedings, and he co-authored AIGC: A New Future for Design and Creativity. He also contributes to the academic community as a guest professor at Beijing Future Design Lab (BFD Lab) and through editorial service for JHCDM, Interactives, and Design and Art Studies (DAS). Beyond these roles, he serves as a council member of Asia Design Week and a member of the Youth Committee of the Industrial Design Division of the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society (CMES).
The same interest in expanding people’s creative capabilities shapes Huang’s work as a serial AI entrepreneur and technology incubator founder. He puts his research interests into practice through creative AI product development and entrepreneurship, with companies he has co-founded or helped incubate collectively raising more than US$15 million in venture capital. He co-founded Nolibox.AI and Dynal.AI, among the earliest companies worldwide to focus on generative AI for design, and has led teams developing platforms for design and creative productivity. These include Dynal.AI, MolyPix.AI, and NoliHub, which together have attracted millions of registered users across more than 70 countries and regions.
Huang believes interdisciplinary research should reach beyond the laboratory and expand what people can do in everyday life. With that in mind, he founded ProtoD, a design-driven technology incubator that helps founders with design and interdisciplinary backgrounds turn ideas into products and build sustainable businesses. His incubation work spans wearable BCI products, spatial computing and XR creation engines, emotionally intelligent personal AI agents, and multi-agent platforms for design thinking. Projects include Nuromova, Monstar.XR, Someone.cool, and IdeaMesh.AI.
Huang’s work has received recognition from the design and entrepreneurial communities. Forbes has named him to its Global Top 100 Most Influential Chinese Elites list and its 30 Under 30 Asia list, and in 2026 he received the “Top 10 Outstanding Chinese American Youth” award. Fortune magazine has selected his work for its list of the year’s 100 best designs, while projects he has led have earned more than 50 design and product awards, including Red Dot, iF, and G-Mark awards. He has shared his work through exhibitions at Milan Design Week, the World Design Cities Conference (WDCC), and the National Museum of China, as well as talks at TEDx and the World Youth Development Forum. His work has also been featured in Forbes Asia, The Los Angeles Post, and other media outlets.