Teaching Statement
As designers, we are frequently asked to create a portfolio to showcase our work. Therefore, a portfolio has always been a familiar way for dissemination in my professional life. In this portfolio, I am visually portraying the work of an academic with a bias for educating in creative ways. Every educational experience depicted has been cautiously designed and prototyped. As in any design process, these are intended to improve through various iterations. I am very driven to do design-based research (DBR) in the classroom. This is a strategy conducted in the field, through interventions in the realm of educational strategies, curricular tasks, and other elements (Reimann, 2011). From an academic point of view, the instructional experiences are used as a focus of research and dissemination. For me, the classroom is a “Living Lab” (Følstad, 2008) where I can witness naturally evolving educational processes and make improvements to an ongoing curriculum. Having the pedagogic tools and preparation given by the Certificate of Accomplishment in Teaching of NC State University’s graduate school has been useful in having a critical and informed point of view on the way I deliver content to students. I want this portfolio to convey the creativity of teaching in design with the formality and effectiveness intended by a pedagogic preparation for facilitating learning in higher education. This portfolio seeks to be also an iterative piece of exhibition and continuous reflection that will encourage my improvement.
Having a systematic tracking of teaching experiences allows the educator to visualize successful and unsuccessful teaching strategies. This section seeks to display just some of teaching instruments and techniques that have been used and perfectioned throughout my experience as a pedagogue in the School of Engineering at UC Chile and my recent work at Johns Hopkins. Particularly, the School of Engineering in Chile provided me with the space to innovate in research and education. In the States, this has been no different. Students have been receptive to these techniques, giving me constant feedback and positive reviews in the semester evaluation. Overall, I am a passionate and informed educator. I believe that the better-informed teaching we do, the better scaffolding we can give to students to thrive and to take responsibility for their own learning experience. My research and practices have gone beyond the School of Engineering, and into the Humanities. During the time I have been at Hopkins, I have made a curricular impact by involving Self-Regulated Learning strategies in a more organized way, involving practical design and research lectures, and assessing the impact of what we are doing through applied research. This is a mindset that I had to bring in, but it has been hopefully embraced by my co-instructor. In Design Teams, I mentor students on their projects, but I have been also a rare find for some of them who need advice on how to approach professional life. My work in Life Projects, Life Design, and my diverse experiences in industry and entrepreneurship have been helpful to this purpose.
In addition, I am proud to bring my cultural background, and diverse experiences to my teaching. This includes being a “disciplinary misfit” or a rather multidisciplinary individual, at every level. This has made it difficult to navigate a siloed academic structure but there has been a strong commitment to build bridges within the different educational organizations I work with. In my work with rural schools, as in my work with university students, I have been always open about my heavy interest in ethics, respectful engineering, and the development of a Culture of Caring in education. I hope that the pieces I am presenting as teaching evidence are a window to my teaching mindset, rigor, and ethical standpoint. I want to continue being an informed and ethical educator who inspires critical thinking in the generations of professionals (and students from any age) to come.
Research Statement
As a professional, I have had a very uncommon research trajectory. From my work in industry (in Chile, Milan, Germany, and the U.S.), I have always conducted applied research related to the human interface. This research has been transferred to the real world in the areas of medical devices, medical services, social issues, human-computer interaction, and organizational issues. At the same time, I was doing applied research for industries, I became very interested in solving ill-defined issues that had a focus on the human component in university research-based projects funded by government science grants. During my PhD, I learned how to collect data thoroughly and to theorize from praxis. In 2013, it was not common to have a doctorate in a design environment. Nonetheless, coming from a family of academics in the medical area, no development made sense to me without a proper research basis.
During my Ph.D., I undertook the applied anthropology program at NC State. I also took courses in statistics and cognitive sciences. In the qualitative research area, I explored what design and the power of synthesis through visualization could do for achieving an innovative investigation. AnthroDesign became a good “umbrella” for connecting both worlds. Since I joined the worldwide design-anthropology community, I’ve been integrating this research lens into my publications and teaching. Research in education has been one of my biggest outputs. I want to be an informed educator. My research and practices have gone beyond the School of Engineering. Today, as a researcher, I still work closely with the School of Education, the School of Medicine, and the Anthropology Department. My interest in higher education, diversity, pre-engineering programs, learning analytics, engineering ed, and self-regulated design learning. Apart from publishing my research in Web of Science-indexed journals, I am a peer reviewer for journals in education (like ITDE, BJET, EJEE) and conferences like EC-TEL, ASEE, BMEs).
My experience in publishing and disseminating my research has also made me a mentor for undergraduate and graduate students wanting to have their data shared in a scholarly way.
Today, my theoretical research has four lines that are usually intertwined: 1) innovation in engineering design education 2) the application of user-centered strategies and the design process for creating meaningful and respectful technologies, 3) diversity and team negotiation in pre-engineering and 4) the development of biomedical devices from a design anthropology point of view. From the applied side, I manage and work with a design anthropology process that works for developing human-centered R&D research for companies and organizations in diverse areas.