Maria Paula Ardila is a trilingual psychologist and anthropologist from Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), with a Master’s in Education and Technology from University College London. She has over five years of experience leading learning initiatives in global organisations across the EMEA and LATAM regions. Her professional journey spans sectors such as consumer goods, EdTech, and non-governmental organisations, where she has designed impactful, data-informed training solutions aligned with organisational goals. Her interests lie in the use of digital technologies, learning design, and advancing learning for employability. She is fluent in English, French, and Spanish.
Heidi Hartikainen is a postdoctoral researcher, project coordinator and project manager in the INTERACT research unit at the faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Oulu. She received her Master’s and Licentiate degrees in Computer and Systems Science from Luleå Tekniska Universitet. She then completed her Ph.D. in Information Processing Science at her current university, where her research focused on children’s use of the social web and their online safety awareness. She is also a graduate of Fab Academy, an intensive six-month program that teaches students to envision, design, and prototype projects using digital fabrication tools and machines. She currently works as a researcher in FutuProta project and as a project coordinator in Critical Changelab and ARTiFAB projects. Heidi Hartikainen is interested in the themes of activism, empowerment, and self-expression through design and digital fabrication. Her research interests include online safety, social media, privacy, maker movement, digital fabrication, and design activism.
Asimina Vasalou is a Professor of Interaction Design based at the UCL Knowledge Lab. She held a tenured senior fellowship at the HCI Centre at the University Birmingham before coming to the UCL Knowledge Lab in 2013. Her Ph.D. was completed at Imperial College at the Intelligent Systems and Networks Group, followed by a post-doctoral position at the School of Management at the University of Bath. Her research seeks to inform the design and use of new digital technologies for learning and communication. For more than ten years, this work has predominantly focused on a range of sensitive groups/contexts, e.g., young children, people with disabilities, and social housing tenants. She conducts field studies to understand the impact of digital technologies in everyday life, and also performs design-oriented research using creative methods toward creating new digital artefacts.
