Becky Stern has authored hundreds of DIY tutorials about everything from microcontrollers to knitting. She is an independent content creator and STEM influencer living in New York City. Before striking out on her own, she worked as product manager at Instructables (Autodesk), director of wearable electronics at Adafruit, and senior video producer for MAKE Magazine. She lives in Brooklyn and enjoys riding on two wheels, making YouTube videos, and collecting new hobbies to share with you. Her work has been featured by VICE, the BBC, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Engadget, CNN, Business Insider, Forbes, and Science Friday.
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Press
- 2022
- 2021
- 2020
- 2019
- 2018
- 2017
- 2015
- 2014
- 2013
- 2012
- 2011
- 2009
CV
Professional Experience
- 2016-2021
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- Autodesk – Product Manager at Instructables – San Francisco, CA (remote from NYC)
- [view my Instructables]
- 2012-2016
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- Adafruit Industries – Director of Wearable Electronics – New York, NY
- [Adafruit videos]
- 2012-now
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- School of Visual Arts – Part-Time Faculty in Products of Design – New York, NY
- Making Studio (class blog)
- 2007-2012
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- O’Reilly Media – Senior Video Producer, MAKE – Sebastopol, CA
- [Becky’s Workshop] [Make: Live]
- 2010
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- Parsons the New School for Design – Part-Time Lecturer – New York, NY
Exhibitions
- 2015
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- F.A.T. GOLD San Francisco (San Francisco, CA), Laptop Compubody Sock with Free Art & Technology
- 2014
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- Google’s Made with Code (New York, NY), various Adafruit wearables
- 2013
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- F.A.T. GOLD Europe, MU (Eindhoven, NL), Laptop Compubody Sock with Free Art & Technology
- F.A.T. GOLD, Eyebeam (New York, NY), Laptop Compubody Sock with Free Art & Technology
- 2012
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- Google I|O After Hours (San Francisco, CA), Dueling Mechanical Bulls with The Madagascar Institute
- 2011
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- FashionWare at CES (Las Vegas, NV), TV-B-Gone Jacket [project info]
- 2010
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- Werk, UAB Visual Arts Gallery (Birmingham, AL), FW1K9 (CAPTCHA Painting) [project info]
- Lost at Sea, gallery hanahou (New York, NY), Plush Squids
- Open MAKE – Wearable and Soft Circuitry, Exploratorium (San Francisco, CA), LilyPad Arduino Embroidery
- One Stitch Forward, One Stitch Back, Redux (Portland, OR)
- Art, Design, and the Arduino, NYC Resistor (Brooklyn, NY) Flying Diamonds
- Open Source Embroidery, Museum of Craft and Folk Art (San Francisco, CA), LilyPad Arduino Embroidery
- 2009
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- Plush You!, Schmancy Gallery (Seattle, WA), Ouch, My Femoral Condyle!
- Gizmodo Gallery, Groupe (New York, NY), TV-B-Gone Hoodie
- FiberArctic, Schmancy Gallery (Seattle, WA) Iceberg
- Open Source Embroidery, Bildmuseet (Umeå, Sweden) LilyPad Arduino Embroidery
- Annual Juried MFA Summer Exhibition, Harry Wood Gallery (Tempe, AZ) Ouch, My Femoral Condyle!
- Imagined Geographies, Bragg’s Pie Factory (Phoenix, AZ)
- Unauthorized, Gallery RFD (Swainsboro, GA) MacBeth Toynbee Tile (almost revealed)
- 2008
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- Lighthouse, Alwun House (Phoenix, AZ) In Stitches
- Plush You!, Double Punch (San Francisco, CA)
- ASU Sculpture Presents Steampunk, First Studio (Phoenix, AZ) Steampunk Sewing Machine
- Flirting With Disaster, Bragg’s Pie Factory (Phoenix, AZ) Knitted Pelts and CAPTCHA Paintings
- ASU New Graduates Exhibition, Harry Wood Gallery (Tempe, AZ) Self Portrait as Blythe
- ParticipArt at the Participatory Design Conference (Bloomington, IN) Body Technology Interfaces
- 2007
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- Kingston Sculpture Biennial (Kingston, NY) Declarative Lamps in collaboration with Rees Shad
- BFA Communication Design & Technology Thesis Exhibition, Chelsea Art Museum (New York, NY) Holon A. [thesis info]
- 2002
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- The Befuddlement of Giving (Malkastenpark, Düsseldorf, Germany)
Print Publications
- 2022
- 2020
- HackSpace Magazine, issue 30 “Electronic Affirmation Mirror”
- 2019
- MAKE Magazine, Volume 67 “Track Your Stats”
- 2018
- HackSpace Magazine, issue 11 “Making the Most of Tinkercad Circuits”
- MAKE Magazine, Volume 64 “If This Then That” and “Hands Free Photography”
- 2015
- Getting Started with Adafruit FLORA by Becky Stern & Tyler Cooper
- 2014
- MAKE Magazine, Volume 42 “Cyberpunk Spikes”
- Building Open Source Hardware by Alicia Gibb (wearables chapter)
- MAKE Magazine, Volume 39 “Flora NeoGeo Watch”
- MAKE Magazine, Volume 38 “10 Tips for Making Great Build Videos”
- Popular Science “When Disaster Strikes, This Bike Generator Will Give Me Power” (photo)
- The Henry Ford Magazine “Get Smart About Fickle Fashion”
- Popular Science “How I Transformed Sewage Into Fresh Water” (photo)
- 2013
- 2012
- MAKE Magazine, “School’s Out” Special Issue Kryptonite Candy [video | download PDF]
- MAKE Magazine, Volume 29 Beating Heart Headband [full instructions online | download PDF]
- 2010
- MAKE Magazine, Volume 22 TV-B-Gone Hoodie [download PDF]
- MAKE Magazine, Volume 21 An Inside Look at MakerBot Industries [more info |download PDF]
- 2009
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- DIY :: HCI — A Showcase of Methods, Communities and Values for Reuse and Customization TV-B-Gone Hoodie [see original instructable]
- 2008
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- The Best of Instructables Volume 1 Blank Books from Office Paper [see original instructable]
- CRAFT Magazine, Volume 9 Electronic Embroidery [more info] [download PDF]
- Stern, R., Kelliher, A. Body-Technology Interfaces (abstract). Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference (PDC), Bloomington, Indiana, October 2008. [more info]
- Techinical Reviewer for Fashioning Technology by Syuzi Pakhchyan [more info] [book site]
- Stern, R., Kelliher, A., Burleson, W. and Tolentino, L. Sharing the Squid: Tangible Workplace Collaboration. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI), Florence, Italy, April 2008. [more info] [download PDF]
- Tolentino, L., Kelliher, A., Birchfield, D., Stern, R. Creativity Interventions: Physical-Digital Activities for Promoting Group Creativity. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI), Florence, Italy, April 2008. [download PDF]
- 2007
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- MAKE Magazine, Volume 11 Plush Irradiated Sirloin [more info] [download PDF]
Talks
- 2021
- Maker Faire Prague (Czech Republic) Keynote
- 2017
- World Maker Faire (Queens, NY) Making on YouTube panel discussion
- 2016
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- Campus Party Mexico (Guadalajara) talk
- 2014
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- Engadget Expand (New York, NY) discussion with Dana Wollman
- Open Hardware Summit (Rome, Italy) What’s Working in Wearables talk
- HOPE X (New York, NY) Disruptive Wearable Technology (talk)
- Core77 Object Culture Conference (Brooklyn, NY) Integrating Tech panel discussion
- Two5six Conference (Brooklyn, NY) Wearables panel discussion
- School for Poetic Computation (New York, NY) Artist talk
- 2013
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- Open Hardware Summit (Cambridge, MA) DIY Wearables at the Intersection of Electronics & Craft
- Eyebeam (New York, NY) Smart Textiles: Fashion That Responds (video)
- 2011
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- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Unit One Residency
- 2010
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- World Maker Faire NY (Queens, NY) Bike tube crafts demo
- Conference of Creative Entrepreneurs (Seattle, WA) panelist [more info]
- Eyebeam (New York, NY) Open Retail panel discussion (with Dustyn Roberts, Bre Pettis, and Giana Gonzalez) [more info]
- Maker Faire Bay Area (San Mateo, CA) Soft Circuits talk and demo (with Angela Sheehan), TV-B-Gone Hoodie talk
- MIT Media Lab (Cambridge, MA) Textiles & Technology [download slides]
- Women’s Leadership Conferenece (by WIPP) (San Francisco, CA) Creating Video for the Web (with Natalie Zee Drieu) [more info]
- 2009
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- Maker Faire Bay Area (San Mateo, CA) Soft Circuits talk and demo, Hacking Clothes and Toys talk and demo [more info]
- 2008
Education
- 2007-2009
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- graduate studies at Arizona State University in Arts, Media and Engineering and Sculpture
- 2007
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- BFA with honors, Parsons the New School for Design Design & Technology, Class Valedictorian [thesis project]
Community
- 2016-now
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- NYC Resistor Hackerspace Member [group site]
- 2008-2015
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- Free Art and Technology (FAT or fffffat) Virtual Research Fellow [group site]
- 2011-2014
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- The Madagascar Institute Member [group site]
Bibliography (print)
- 2019
- Unfolding Fashion Tech: Pioneers of Bright Futures edited by Marina Toeters et al.
- 2014
- Make: Wearable Electronics by Kate Hartman
- Textiles Innovations Et Matieres Actives by Bost/Crosetto
- 2013
- Textile Messages: Dispatches From the World of E-Textiles and Education edited by Leah Buechley et al.
- Can Wearable Computers Revolutionize How We Learn To Code? FastCompany (October 2013)
- Makers at Work: Folks Reinventing the World One Object or Idea at a Time by Steven Osborn
- 2012
- “Which Way to the Ball? I’ll Ask My Gown,” New York Times (Feb 25, 2012)
- 2011
- Coal-powered Craft: A Past for the Future by Ele Carpenter, The Journal of Modern Craft 4:2 (June 2011)
- See Yourself Sensing by Madeline Schwartzman
- 2010
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- “The renaissance of craft. An interview with Becky Stern” by Bertram Niessen, Openwear
- “Need a new bottle opener? Print one” by Jonathan Richards, The Times (UK) (June 9, 2010)
- “New Media Art, Design, and the Arduino Microcontroller: A Malleable Tool” Art History thesis by Alicia Gibb, Pratt Institute
- 2009
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- “Blending History and the Future,” Fiber Arts (Volume 36 Number 2)
- “Crafts and Codes” by Lisa Delgado, Crafts Magazine (UK) (issue 217 – March/April)
- Fashion Geek by Diana Eng
- 2008
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- “Build It. Share It. Profit. Can Open Source Hardware Work?” by Clive Thompson, Wired (November 2008)
- 2007
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- New School Sustainable Design Review [download PDF]