That's Kripa Varanasi, a mechanical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who co-created LiquiGlide to battle the nefarious issue of interfaces.
This steel wool is basically just thinly shaved metal that's mostly iron, and the more fine, the more surface area the metal has, the easier it is to burn.
An interface is any spot or surface where two things meet. You're familiar with the physical forces creating friction and solid interfaces, like when a tire skids on a road.