Spearhead initiatives that bring together diverse individuals to collaboratively tackle social and environmental challenges, fostering creativity, innovation, and local impact through immersive gatherings.

Lead a design and research organization focused on decentralized design, fostering creative capacities, and building equitable, regenerative futures through community-driven projects and systemic change.

• Support management of the research team. • Develop, pilot, and refine research instruments, analysis, & maintenance of data.• Work with a team to write the research findings into a publishable paper.• Support the development of participatory design workshops and facilitate training in the field.• Support D-Lab Gender and Development student teams in co-design research and innovation practice projects to create gender equity in Latin American and Africa.

Systems Practice and Design Research Expert for the project ‘Movement Building for Women Miners’.• Spearheaded and mentored a team of voluntary students working on the project.• Wrote a research paper including a literature review from secondary research and details on the methodologies selected to apply in the project. • Prototyped key elements of the experience to conduct remote testing of the material and activities proposed.• Devised a visual image and storytelling strategy, producing all visual elements for printed and digital material.

Engineering Problem Solving and Design Project - Spring 2021 - School of Engineering and Applied SciencesMethods and Practices in Design Engineering - Fall 2020 - School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Mink’a is a development program for low-income women workers of Latin America that supports their agency by training their creative capacities through a collaborative learning experience.• Investigated, strategized, and designed a scalable development program that supports women’s agency by training their creative capacities through a collaborative learning experience.• Identified end-user needs and behavior through gender-informed participatory action research workshops with 15 participants in Turucucho, Ecuador, and 30 participants in Secocha, Peru. • Developed needs assessment and gender analysis tools, semi-structured interviews, a survey, and a lean-data approach for long-term success evaluation of the program.• Assessed the qualitative and quantitative data gathered and synthesized research insights to propose an 8-step curriculum with targeted and contextualized activities to achieve the program’s main goal. • Produced all graphics, visual components, virtual platforms, and objects by defining requirements for brand-aligned user experience.• Created funding plans to ensure progress towards goals, prepared grant proposals, and achieved key partnerships with MIT D-Lab and El Ordeno Corporation in Ecuador for the project implementation.

• Methodologies in Design Engineering - Fall 2019 - Graduate School of Desing / School of Engineering and Applied Sciences• Engineering Problem Solving and Design Project - Spring 2020 - School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

The main mission of the Community Service Fellowship Program (CSFP) is to expose students to new challenges and methods of working, and to encourage them to explore connections between the academic interests they pursue at the GSD and the practitioner’s vocation to understand and address existing challenges faced by communities both locally and nationally throughout the U.S: • Led the Community Outreach and Education Program for Recycling and Waste Management in the Frog Hollow Neighborhood• Coordinated and guided the relationship with partner staff and project stakeholders, providing administrative and logistical support for the implementation of the program, including setting milestones, organizing meetings, and ensuring completion of activities required to meet established deadlines. • Designed and conducted sustainability and waste management workshops for the for 20 Frog Hollow community youth representatives, in English and Spanish, as the leader of the Community Outreach and Education Program. • Produced, wrote, and designed a 90-page guide for a design-based project management approach for sustainability projects based on research, case studies and the Hartford Climate Action Plan.

dxp-org was founded as a non-profit to provide consulting design services for social innovation projects in Ecuador: • Planned, managed, and executed a diverse range of activities, from ethnographic and qualitative research to data interpretation, insight translation, idea development, and costs proposals.• Directed a year-long design research process with the community of Mariano Acosta in rural Ecuador analyzing the cause of poverty and migration, then ideated on projects the community could implement to diversify their economic activities.• Designed architectural projects pro-bono for different non-profits in need of the service, finding low budget solutions, and helping them resource affordable and free materials for construction. • Recruited, selected, and supervised volunteers joining to work on and collaborate in the organization’s projects.

-dxp- was a design studio based in Quito, Ecuador, that worked on designing solutions, concepts, and products using human-centered approaches: • Decided on the studio’s design initiatives and projects, overseeing the design and innovation efforts, including ownership of all front-end interaction points (store, workshop, company website, social media). • Nurtured a thriving community of designers, leading teams that worked in interior architecture and construction, product design and production, graphic design, experience design, and design consulting.• Built and maintained the design and production team managing 9 people on the design team, 34 employees as the construction foremen, 12 employees at the wood, and steel shop.• Supported the development of innovative business models, working with clients from the music industry, hospitality, the wellness industry, among others. • Conducted user research to inform, iterate, and validate over an average of 10 products, services, and concepts each year, using methods such as field observations, interviews, contextual inquiries, surveys, and remote usability testing.