Hi 👋 I'm Lydia. 

I research DIY and community laboratory-based emerging technology culture in Baltimore.

Photo of Lydia, a white woman with brown hair cut in a chin-length bob with bangs. Lydia is pictured in a messy biology laboratory, with a research poster, monitor, incubator, microscope, and various wires and boxes behind them. She holds her hand up to the photographer in a wave an smiles slightly. In her other hand is a small notebook. Lydia is wearing a plaid button up shirt.

Recent work

Lydia_Stamato_Cultivating_DNA_Publics_accessible_print.pdf

Dissertation Research Poster

An overview of my dissertation research work-in-progress presented at the 2024 UMBC College of Engineering and Information Technology Research Day, "Cultivating DNA Publics: Transdisciplinary Experimentation in a Community Science Space." Received great questions from the judges!

Stamato_CHI24.pdf

CHI '24 Full Paper

Our paper, "Message In a Bottle: Investigating Bioart Installations as a Means of Community Engagement" presented in person in at CHI '24 in Honolulu, Hawai'i, elucidates liminality as a mechanism of bioart-led community engagement with emerging technology. Our data generation guides are included in an appendix!

fcomp-04-830959-1.pdf

Frontiers in CS '22 Journal Article

Our preliminary investigation of bioart and public engagement in a community laboratory, "Raaz: A Transdisciplinary Exploration at the Intersection of Bioart, HCI, and Community Engagement," published in Frontiers in Computer Science, highlights questions raised by audience members about emerging technology.

Hamidi CHI21.pdf

CHI '21 Full Paper

Presented online at CHI '21 by my advisor Foad Hamidi, "'Turning the Invisible Visible': Transdisciplinary Bioart Explorations in Human-DNA Interaction" marks the beginning of my research into bioart and HCI. I learned about the great Persian poet Hafiz of Shiraz, synthetic biology, and bio-poetry, and began developing connections between bioart and living media interfaces through interviews with bioartists.