Puneet Jain is an artist/engineer working at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), eXtended Reality (XR), Artificial Intelligence(s), Critical Design, and Disability Studies. He is currently pursuing his PhD under the supervision of Artist/Researcher Dr. Chris Salter, supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) project titled ‘Probing XR Futures’ (2023-2027) at Zurich University of Arts (ZHdK), Switzerland.

During his doctoral studies, Puneet deviates from his engineering practice towards artistic-research - investigating how technologies of XR (umbrella term for Virtual/Augmented Reality and body-worn interfaces) can be made accessible for the disabled artists (particularly people with quadriplegia/paraplegia). Questioning: how can such platforms of XR be hacked, reversed and adapted to become guides for disability justice and activism? Enabling us to re-shape, re-imagine, and provoke the common misconceptions around sensorimotor disabilities through body-machine interaction.

Puneet did his masters (by research) in Computation and Data Sciences from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India (2014-2016). He also worked as a Data Scientist at SAP Labs from 2016-2018 engaging with customers in automotive industries. After working in Industry he worked as a Research Fellow in IISc at the Interaction Design Lab where he developed an adaptive eye-gaze controlled virtual keyboard for people with speech and motor disabilities in collaboration with Microsoft Research, India.

Puneet’s work has been showcased both in his home country India at Khoj Studios (New Delhi, India), Walkin Studios (Bangalore, India) and internationally at venues such Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), ISEA (Barcelona, Spain), xCoAx (Treviso, Italy), Electronic Literature Organization (Florida, USA), Uncommon Senses Conference (Montreal, Canada) etc.