Roland Lamb had an unusual educational path: he attended Summerhill School, a pioneering experiment in democratic education. At eighteen he moved to Japan to practice Zen Buddhism at Antaiji, and then traveled extensively and worked as an artist and musician. His interests in cross-cultural philosophy brought him to Harvard University, where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Classical Chinese and Sanskrit philosophy, winning a Hoopes Prize for his thesis, “This, That, and the Other.” While studying philosophy, he continued working on more conceptually oriented material investigations, which led to an interest in new industrial and technological modes of production. When he was awarded a Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Scholarship, he decided to pursue a Masters in Design Products at the Royal College of Art.

At the RCA, Roland invented an award-winning new approach to building three-dimensional pressure-sensing interfaces, the first application of which is the Seaboard, a radical reimagining of the traditional piano keyboard. This dynamic patent-pending interface has potential applications in remote surgery, prosthetic limb control, and robotics—and is the basis for his PhD research, focusing on physical interfaces for manipulating and navigating three-dimensional environments. At Sea Labs, he works with an outstanding team developing a new approach to human-computer interaction. He lives and works in London.

Contact: roland@rolandlamb.com