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TAM graduate Jolie Klefeker's research explores fibercraft and sound. 

Jolie Klefeker wonders if technology could help us slow down. 

“How could we use technology … to think more critically, have more fun, to feel a little happier or more mindful through our day?” she asks. 

It might seem strange that, in our world of constant stimuli, tech could be used to feel present or allow for wonder and enchantment. Yet it is these fragile, ephemeral feelings that Klefeker follows through her gentle take on human-computer interaction. 

Over the past three years, Klefeker, an undergraduate student in Technology, Arts, and Media (TAM) in the College of Engineering and Applied Science, and now Outstanding Graduate for Research, has become the primary author for three scholarly papers. 

This is a big accomplishment, as academic publishing is often left to those in master’s and doctoral programs. Mark Gross, director of the ATLAS Institute, values the model Klefeker provides for other students. 

“(She) makes the case that one of the most exciting and rewarding opportunities open to our undergraduate students is to become an apprentice in faculty research and creative work,” he said. 

Her impressive track record began with a single piece of yarn and a passion for sound.

String Theory

As a small exercise in Critical Technical Practice (CTP), a class taught by Assistant Professor Laura Devendorf, Klefeker was asked to consider yarn. Klefeker realized yarn is not just a basic material. 

“Yarn has a rich legacy. It’s always been associated with fibercraft and women’s work and even now those implications are buried within it. In the smart textile industry, those tie-ins are often ignored,” she said.

She wanted to make a sensor that would connect to and physicalize those implications. After CTP, Klefeker continued her work at the ATLAS Institute’s Unstable Design Lab, which Devendorf directs. 

Devendorf said she values what Klefeker brought to the lab. 

“The way she asks questions, thinks about creative outputs, and explores those ideas is inspirational for everyone,” she said.

Klefeker appreciates Devendorf’s role as mentor. She said she sees how Devendorf empowers her students and brings out the best in each of them, and how her background in both art and computer science allows her to understand their intersections.  

“She’s just full of ideas and good advice. She’s definitely who I want to be when I grow up!” Klefeker said.  

Klefeker’s project morphed into prototyping a novel soft sensor, a loop of yarn that “knows” if it’s been knotted or crossed. “String Figuring: A Story of Reflection, Material Theory, and a Novel Sensor” was her first paper. Co-authored by Devendorf, it details Klefeker’s foray into research through design and highlights how curiosity and the research process provide value to the researcher.

The Ear of the Beholder

This curiosity has been with Klefeker since she was young. Then, it revolved around music, but it grew into sounds in general, an appreciation she found in ASMR.

ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response, is a physical phenomenon of pleasurable tingles down the neck when exposed to certain sounds. It has also inspired an online community dedicated to the sensation.

Klefeker felt there was something special to the videos created to elicit these tingles. ASMR videos are long, slow and detailed, different from almost everything else online. She found herself wondering,

“Why are people suddenly so interested in the complete opposite of the general tone of the Internet?” 

This question began a year-long exploration into using ASMR as a framework for presence and intimacy.

In her first ASMR experiment, Klefeker recruited five research subjects who were provided with a “sonic toolkit” with which to create and record sounds for a day. It was revealed that, for many of the subjects, the act of recording itself made them feel more mindful and present in the moment.  

That research evolved into Klefeker’s second paper, co-authored with Devendorf. Titled “,” the paper was presented to faculty, graduate students and industrial research labs at the Designing Interactive Systems conference in 2019. 

The Need for Enchantment

Building on the first experiment, Klefeker and Devendorf created items of clothing with embedded systems that allow body movements to become ways of accessing and playing with sound to explore mindfulness and expression.

This research is documented in Klefeker’s most recent paper, “ co-authored by Devendorf and PhD student libi striegl, and published in the proceedings of the Computer Human Interaction conference of 2020. 

As Klefeker writes in the paper, “by embracing the personal and taking inspiration from ASMR media, we were able to confront and investigate the ineffable experiences and feelings that had always fascinated us but were previously too difficult or big to explain, and therefore had been left unexplored or forgotten.”

This is what Klefeker’s work brings. As Devendorf describes it, “we weren't out to ‘prove’ something about ASMR in design, but really to follow different observations and instincts to imagine other ways of engaging with the world.” 

Klefeker follows materials and perceptions where they lead before judging their value or importance, fostering creative outcomes. Her deeply introspective research method is different from a heavily quantitative study. 

“It can be fun to engage these more anecdotal, qualitative, art-informed inquiries at the beginning and then get to that point,” Klefeker said.  

Looking Back & Looking Ahead

Klefeker feels empowered by the college’s recognition of her research. There were times she felt her work should change to be more quantitative, but she’s glad she valued a qualitative approach.

Devendorf echoes this understanding. She said different methods of research are different lenses through which to see the work. 

“They shape how you see and talk about the world around you. (Klefeker’s) choice to focus on research through design and autobiographical experience allowed us to deeply attend to our own experiences and embodied sensations,” she said.

Diverse experiences and backgrounds are a strength in engineering. When Klefeker was in high school, this trajectory wasn’t something she planned for.

“In high school, I was always in the lower math classes. I never in a million years thought I could go to school in an engineering program, or do something like computer science,” she said. “I had this narrative that I wasn’t smart enough, and that I wasn’t the image of a computer scientist ... but computer science is cool, and if you’re interested in it, there’s a place for you.” 

Klefeker is going to work as a web developer at , a software company that makes visual programming products for multimedia projects. And grad school is definitely on the table. 

“I still have a lot of questions,” she said. “. You use design and storytelling to incite critical conversations about the future. How could we create different values around sustainability, instead of putting bandaids on smaller issues?” 

We don’t know what the future holds, but even there, Klefeker is tinkering.

Klefeker will be presenting at a Virtual #CHI2020 Session on Thursday May 21 at 10 AM MST. RSVP at