Doctoral Candidate Juan Alfonso de la Rosa successfully defended his dissertation, “MULTILAYER FUTURE SYSTEM-MAPPING USING DECENTERED PROTOTYPES: A PARTICIPATORY TOOL FOR DESIGN OF PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE IN COMPLEX SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS” on May 6th.
Program Area: Design, Technology, and Society
Research:
In my current area of research, I am looking at two major components: first, the use of displaced prototypes as probes to collect information about the possible structures of the future system (or how the system evolves as we implement new technology) to produce mapping mechanism based on the embedded values of the objects.
Second, I am looking at the physical characteristics of objects from a phylogenetic perspective to recognize how those values can impact social behavior, especially from the perspective of public infrastructure design.
I’m hoping to provide new parameters for infrastructure designers and policymakers to determine the unintended repercussions of the public infrastructure and possible ways to address or improve the issues.