[2] She founded and directed the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group.

She holds bachelor's and PhD degrees in computer science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium.

[5] Maes' areas of expertise are human–computer interaction, intelligent interfaces and ubiquitous computing.

[6] Maes is the editor of three books, and is an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences.

[7][8] She has received several awards: Newsweek magazine named her one of the "100 people for the new century";[9][10] TIME Digital selected her as a member of the Cyber-Elite (the top 50 technological pioneers of the high-tech world); the World Economic Forum honored her with the title Global Leader for Tomorrow; Ars Electronica awarded her the 1995 World Wide Web category prize; and in 2000 she was recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council.