About | Partners | Materials and Results | Updates

The Autonomous team is made up of designers and researchers specialised in participatory design and developing technology for people with dementia that better their lives.

Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS (Portugal) 

Research center devoted to digital technology with a track record on collaborative development with people self-care technologies, intelligent solutions, and assistive solutions for older adults and chronic disease populations.  
Website: https://www.aicos.fraunhofer.pt

  • Cristina Mendes Santos, MSc, Ph.D., is a senior researcher at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS in the Human-Centred Design department. She has a licentiate degree in Clinical Psychology, an MSc in Clinical and Health Psychology, a Postgraduate degree in Health Management, and a Ph.D. in Dynamics of Health and Welfare. She has clinical experience and a strong track record coordinating oncology clinical trials.

    Cristina’s research is transdisciplinary, combining psychological, health, economic, and computer sciences. She believes evidence-based digital programs are vital to providing equitable mental healthcare and strengthening healthcare systems worldwide; therefore, her work focuses mainly on Digital Health. She studies Digital Mental Health interventions’ development, acceptance, efficacy, and implementation using a user-centered design approach and mixed methods.

    Cristina’s main interests are #DigitalMentalHealth, #InternetInterventions, #Psycho-Oncology, #PublicHealth, and #Healthcare services management.

  • Inês Silva, originally from Porto, is currently working as a Researcher in the Human-Centered Design team at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS. She did a bachelor's in computer engineering sciences at FCUP (Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto). Subsequently, she pursued her master's degree at FEUP (Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto), in multimedia, specialising in digital games and interactive technologies. Her master's thesis delved into developing a self-reporting mental health interface designed for shop floor workers, delving her passion into the UX UI field.

    In addition to her academic pursuits, Inês served as a class monitor for computer engineering students at FEUP and was on the Multimedia and Computer Graphics Student Association (NCGM) board. Her current research interests are focused on human-computer interaction, particularly with an emphasis on accessibility, inclusivity and their potential impact on future generations.

  • Filippo Talami is a researcher in Interaction Design at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS in the Human-Centred Design department.

    He has a BA and MA in Industrial design focused on social robotics and interaction design. He graduated at the IUAV University of Venice, Italy, with a master thesis called “Robotic Disassembly – A new methodology to achieve zero e-waste” focusing on the research of new methodologies to design product so that they can be easily disassembled by robotic arms. Before joining Fraunhofer, Filippo collaborated with researchers from the DIAG (Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering) inside the University Sapienza of Rome, Italy, and with research fellows from the “School of Psychology of aging” at the University of Padua, Italy.

    His main research interests lie in AR/VR accessibility, Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Robot Interaction and the relationship between people and new technologies.

  • Ana Vasconcelos is a scientist at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS performing research within the Human-Centred Design team since 2012. She holds a Master in Informatics and Computer Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. Her thesis focused on designing and evaluating tablet-based cognitive games targeted at the senior audience. The main focus of her current work is the development of technology-based inclusive solutions for diverse users and contexts where she conducts user research, prototyping and user experience evaluation activities. Her main research interests are long-term technology evaluation (longitudinal studies) and impact assessment.

  • Ricardo Graça is a researcher at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS in the Connected Things department.

    He has a Masters in Computer Engineering from the FEUP (Faculty of Porto) with a master thesis called “ParkDetect - Early Diagnosing Parkinsons Disease” focusing in understanding how data collected from a smartphone can help diagnose Parkinson’s disease in early stages. During the 10 years after Ricardo focused in helping developing research projects in different fields but mainly healthcare with mobile solutions and IoT devices to monitor patients with different pathologies and scenarios to provide meaningful data for formal and informal healthcare providers.

  • Joana Silva is a Design Researcher working in the Human-Centered Design group at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS, with a BA in Communication Design (Higher School of Arts and Design, ESAD Matosinhos) and a specialization course in Interaction, Web and Game Design (Faculty of Fine Artes, University of Porto). Previously she worked as a research fellow at INEGI (Institute of Science and Innovation in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering) and FEUP (Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto), seeking to design a series of eHealth short games for rehabilitation recovery. Currently, she is captivated by design and research, especially for healthcare settings and by playful and embodied experiences as means to support participatory design methods with vulnerable groups.

LUCA School of Arts Inter-Actions Research Unit (Belgium)

Specialized in systemic, participatory, and co-design research within vulnerable populations, including people with dementia.
Websites: https://caring.anddesignresearch.com and https://www.luca-arts.be

  • Niels is the research coordinator of the research unit Inter-Actions, the research cluster on ‘Design, Care, empathy and well-being’ and also a design researcher and lecturer at the LUCA School of Arts. In his research work, he mainly zooms in on how people with high support needs and little means of communication can be involved in design research (mainly people with dementia). Next to a participatory approach, his work takes on a systemic view: how does an artefact and those ‘using’ the artefact influence each other and how will this change the care ‘system’ as a whole.

    Niels is also the co-founder of the Dementia Lab which clusters research and educational activities and the name of a conference on dementia and design (fifth installment in 2021, proceedings published at Springer). He is a reviewer for numerous journals and conferences and has been on the program committee and organising committee of the Participatory Design Conference. He has been active mainly in Belgium, but has been working in Hong Kong and Denmark as well.

  • Andrea is a post-doctoral researcher at the LUCA School of Arts and is a lecturer in the Masters of Design and Art Education programme and researcher in the Inter-Actions Research Group. She also lectures and researches at Thomas More University of Applied Sciences in the Postgraduate Space and Service Design programme. A designer, researcher and lecturer in design, her expertise domains are interaction design, visual language communication, service design and design education. In her research, she mainly focuses on design equity and how empathy emerges within the designer through interaction and participation with ‘design-poor’ individuals (people with dementia, young people with autism, people with a disability, people on the fringes of society, etc). This relation-based design participation between designer and participant and necessary proxy participants informs design decisions (products, services, functionality) as well as the designer’s future creative practice.

    In 2016, together with Dr. Hendriks, she co-founded the Dementia Lab Conference. A native of the US, but based in Belgium since 2010, Andrea is active mainly in Belgium, but has also worked in New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Portugal and India in workshops and educational exchanges.

  • Britt is a social designer who is passionate about the involvement of minority groups during a creative design process. Her biggest drive is realising projects in co-creation with the end-users. Britt is dedicated to designing for groups struggling to find solutions that meet their needs, be it people with dementia or with mental or physical challenges, etc. Her affinity for designing services, architectural solutions and urban interventions is translated into understandable visuals and prototypes. By combining different scales that complement each other, Britt offers multi-layered design solutions, based on thorough research.

    After graduating as an architect at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp (2019) Britt continued her studies with a Master in Urbanism and Spatial Planning (2021). Her MA thesis focused on participatory design principles (such as urban tactics) and their usage in social housing neighborhoods during complex urban planning projects. In 2022 she completed the Postgraduate Degree in Space and Service design at Thomas More University of Applied Sciences. Her design for inclusive tourism for people with intellectual disabilities was nominated for the New European Bauhaus prices 2022 in the category ‘rising star’.

    The end of 2022, Britt joined the Inter-Actions research team at LUCA School of Arts in Genk. She will be responsible for the management support of the HOMEDEM project, a European Doctoral Training Network in design and dementia caregiving. Next to this, she will conduct her own research at the Inter-Actions Research Unit.

  • Lieke is a Belgian designer. In 2018 she graduated as Master of Arts in Product Design. During her studies Lieke discovered the power of design to communicate to the public. Her work is characterized by this layer of communication. This informs a wide variety of topics from the complexity of the human mind, to the relationship between crafts and local heritage.

    Lieke’s work has been exhibited internationally, with an ongoing focus on the communicative aspects of design. Thorough research is the heart of her work. In combination with her own personal view, Lieke dissects a theme and translates it into a visual design language. Objects are used as active agents to inform users about a certain topic. This research-based working method results in functional and experimental designs, balancing between the object and the experience.

    In 2019 Lieke started a position as designer-researcher at the Inter-Actions Research Unit, Caring. And Design Research Group, based at LUCA School of Arts Genk. As a designer-researcher she’s involved in projects focusing on design for people with dementia. In 2020, Lieke began a PhD at LUCA in which she’s researching ways to turn participative design experiences with people living with dementia into accessible design processes, tools and artefacts for other designers.

Carnegie Mellon University-Smart Sensing for Humans Lab (USA) 

Develops intelligent sensing systems for health, accessibility, and activity recognition. 
Websites: https://smashlab.io and https://www.cs.cmu.edu

  • Mayank Goel is an Associate Professor in the Software and Societal Systems Department (S3D) and Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) in the School of Computer Science at CMU. His research interests are in the areas of Human-Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous Computing, Sensing, Signal Processing, and Applications of Machine Learning. He regularly collaborates with mechanical and biomedical engineers as well as doctors, nurses, and community health workers. Some of his inventions are deployed in clinics around the world and licensed to several companies. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington, M.S. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and B.Tech. in CSE from GGS Indraprastha University, India.