91ÇàÇà²Ý

Especifically, my work engages with the possibilities, and contradictions of participating in design, and designing participation today. I have explored these issues in multiple domains ranging from everyday life to scientific endeavors.  Through my research, I aim to understand how collectives (broadly speaking) come to understand the design spaces available to them and how designers could infrastructure those spaces better, and support livable futures. These work draws from and happens at the intersection of participatory design, science and technology studies and transformative creative practice.

I am Associate Professor (New Frontiers in Design) at the Department of Design where I currently lead INUSE research group, where we work with designer-user relations in socio-technical change. In addition, I am adjunct professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Design of Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá (COL) and Guest Professor at the Centre for Sustainable and Digital Transformation of Aalborg University (DK).

My research has been funded by the European Union, the Finnish Research council, the Finnish fund for technology development and Aalto Univeristy seed funding programs.

I am interested in what counts as design, what other practices for world making are there, and which ones we need to call into being. Thus my research and practice not only aims to understand, I also I seek to resist, intervine and demonstrate alternatives. In that vein, my collaborative design practice explores the creation of environments, tools and media that afford more relational and caring interactions among, and between people, collectives and their environment. The collective, practices and tools are one example of this.

Teaching 2025-2026:

MUO-E0002 Design Research (Spring)- for all MA students of the Department of Design (Together with Prof Martina Caic)

MUO-E8041  Collaborative and participatory techniques for design (Fall)- Creative sustainability MA program at the Department of Design

MUO-E0020 Intro to MA studies (Fall)- for all MA students of the Department of Design (Together with Prof Pirjo Kääriainen and Prof Marco Steimberg)

MUO-L1002 - Analysing Doctoral Theses in Design (Spring) - For the Doctoral program in Arts , Design and Architecture

I advice / supervise MA students and DA researchers on a continous basis.

BACKGROUND

I studied a BA- Industrial Design, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (COL) , MA- Product and Strategic Design, Aalto University (FIN) and DA- Doctor of Arts - New Media, Aalto University (FIN)

I have worked as post-doc at the department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University of Oulu (FIN) and as design practitioner in several design consultancies in multiple R&D projects as product owner, interaction designer and design researcher. I do occasional design consultancy gigs via a collective design research studio called Suo&co, that I have convened with 3 wonderful friends for more than a decade.

In my spare time I do design and multigenerational diversity activism through the board of , a Finnish NGO creating a more diverse and plurilingual children's culture in Finland. I also sit in the board of , a Colombian NGO working around community development rural connectivity and technology appropiation.