About the project
Objective
My research aims to examine how digitalising urban water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructures can enhance public wellbeing – acknowledging that secure and equitable access to critical WASH infrastructures and facilities is a core human right.
This project draws on the transdisciplinary intersection of architecture with human-computer interaction (HCI) and the shift to human-building interaction (HBI) in querying the ethical implications of spatiotemporally immersive urban spaces.
Background
The digitalisation of cities is a well-established concept; however, the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the need to optimise existing, Sustainable Smart City urban infrastructures to protect public health and well-being. As society negotiates the long-term threat of disease transmission, digital technologies offer the opportunity to transform human nature, human-built, and human-human relationships.
About the Digital Futures Postdoc Fellow
Stacy Vallis completed her doctoral studies in architecture at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her doctoral research responded to the risks to public urban safety posed by natural hazards. It explored the applications of geospatial and drone technologies for rapid assessment of contemporary and historic urban centres to inform the selection of retrofit solutions that generate safer streetscapes.
Stacy’s postdoctoral research will also be driven by overarching themes of public well-being, disaster response, and the integration of emerging technologies in urban centres. She will examine human-centred approaches for optimizing the development of digital technologies in post-pandemic Sustainable Smart Cities. Her work will provide insights into how digitalization is used to enhance public health and well-being by retrofitting the built environment.
Stacy is also passionate about using cultural heritage and intergenerational dialogue as tools for addressing many societal challenges.
Main supervisor
Andrew Karvonen, Researcher, Urban and Regional Studies, KTH.
Co-supervisor
Elina Eriksson, Associate Professor, Division of Media Technology and Interaction Designs, KTH.
Watch the recorded presentation at Digitalize in Stockholm 2022 event.
About the project
Objective
This research aims to develop data-driven models for gait biomechanics to improve precision rehabilitation. By integrating statistical shape modeling, musculoskeletal simulations, and deep reinforcement learning, the project enables personalized gait impairment assessments and optimizes rehabilitation interventions for individuals with neurological and musculoskeletal disorders.
Background
Human gait is a complex biomechanical process influenced by neuromuscular control, skeletal structure, and external factors. Understanding gait abnormalities is essential for designing effective rehabilitation strategies. Traditional gait analysis, relying on motion capture and inverse dynamics, has limitations in scalability, personalization, and real-time applicability.
Recent advancements in artificial intelligence, musculoskeletal modeling, and wearable technology offer new opportunities for precision rehabilitation. Statistical shape modeling enables personalized bone and muscle geometry reconstruction, while deep reinforcement learning facilitates adaptive gait retraining strategies. This research integrates these approaches to develop predictive models that bridge the gap between clinical gait analysis and real-world rehabilitation applications.
About the Digital Futures Postdoc Fellow
Liangliang Xiang is a researcher in biomechanics and computational modeling. He holds a PhD in Bioengineering from the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, University of Auckland. His research focuses on gait biomechanics, musculoskeletal modeling, and explainable AI for movement analysis. He has developed predictive models for bone stress in running, integrated wearable sensors into biomechanical simulations, and applied deep learning for human movement analysis. He focuses on translating computational biomechanics into practical applications for gait rehabilitation.
Main supervisor
Elena Gutierrez Farewik, Professor, Department of Engineering Mechanics, KTH.
Co-supervisor
Ruoli Wang, Assistant Professor, Department of Engineering Mechanics, KTH.
About the project
Objective
The aim of this project is to explore and assess the potential of novel shape-changing wearables to improve body-based communication. These technologies hold promise because they can be worn on the body and provide tangible, haptic actuation that can emulate qualities of collocated physical interaction, as well as open up novel interactive qualities altogether.
A key concept that the project addresses is that of connecting bodies. I will explore how the interactive qualities of shape-changing wearables can be designed and used to foster a somatic connection between bodies, e.g., bridging together actions, perceptions and emotions from one body to another in a way that they are felt by the person, rather than just narrated. I envision that fostering this felt connection can, in turn, create richer, more effective and affective body-based communication.
Background
The digitalization of society, as well as recent global health developments (i.e. the COVID-19 pandemic), have fostered a shift from face-to-face, collocated interactions to remote communications. Communicating over video-mediated online platforms and conferencing software is becoming pervasive, shaping our everyday lives, practices, and how we interact with each other. Yet, these solutions do not adequately support settings where body-based interaction and physical contact are critical for effective, affective and rich communication, for example, remote health practices (e.g. remote physiotherapy) or affective well-being settings (e.g. long-distance relationships).
About the Digital Futures Postdoc Fellow
Laia Turmo Vidal is an interaction design researcher. Her research focuses on the design, development and evaluation of multi-sensory technologies that enrich the aesthetic perception of the body as a way to promote rich physical, emotional, and social experiences. Her research targets domains of health and wellbeing such as sports, fitness, rehabilitation and dance. Her research interests include wearable technology, material explorations, social cooperation and design methods development.
Laia holds a PhD and an MSc in Human-Computer Interaction from Uppsala University (Sweden) and a BDes in Multimedia Technologies from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain). Prior to KTH, she was a postdoctoral researcher at i_mBODY Lab at the University Carlos III de Madrid (Spain). She has also been a research intern at UCL Interaction Center (UK) and a research visitor at the University of California, Santa Cruz (USA).
Main supervisor
Kristina Höök, Professor, Division of Media Technology and Interaction Design, KTH
Co-supervisor
Georgios Andrikopoulos, Assistant Professor at the School of Industrial Engineering and Management, KTH
Watch the recorded presentation at the Digitalize in Stockholm 2023 event.
About the project
Objective
In this project, we shall develop, implement, and evaluate a mobile health (mHealth) platform for educating patients about cancer and mental illnesses in Uganda, linkage of patients to peer support workers (“expert patients” and survivors), and collecting patient-reported outcomes (e.g. self symptom assessment and quality of life surveys). We shall follow a design science research approach and principles of user-centred design. We shall use familiar and feasible technologies such as SMS, USSD and IVR. The health information content and communication flows shall also be developed and iteratively evaluated with the target users of the system to ensure it is contextually appropriate and correctly translated. Evaluation of the project will be qualitative and quantitative, including assessment of usability, fidelity, and the clinical impact, such as the impact of the intervention on patient self-efficacy, loss to follow-up, quality of life, and satisfaction with care.
Background
The health and economic development challenges of infectious diseases in Africa and other LMICs are well recognized. Controlling these infectious diseases (especially HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis) in Africa has thus been the priority for many national and global players, such as the US CDC and PEPFAR, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Global Fund. Consequently, significant progress has been made in the past decades in controlling infectious diseases in Africa. In contrast, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cancer and mental illnesses have remained under-prioritized.
Today, cancer kills approximately 10 million people per year globally. This is more than deaths from HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and COVID-19 combined. In Africa, the ongoing socio-economic transitions (urbanization, ageing population, and westernization of lifestyles) are escalating the cancer burden (incidence predicted to rise 38% over the next decade) faster than in any other part of the world. Similarly, approximately one out of every four persons globally has a mental disorder, leading to over 8 million deaths and about 2.5 trillion US dollars lost in the loss of productivity. In Africa, 85% of people with mental illnesses do not have access to the necessary healthcare. Disruptions in healthcare, e.g. due to COVID-19, as well as social inequalities and marginalization, further exacerbate the problem.
Mobile phones are ubiquitous in Africa and have allowed leapfrogging of technological limitations. Mobile solutions are accelerating finance (mobile money), the energy sector (pay-as-you-go solar mobile solutions), and agriculture (access to market prices, micro-insurance), among others. Mobile technologies in healthcare (mHealth) are also gaining traction in Africa with a demonstrated positive impact on patient treatment adherence, provision of health education and awareness to the general public, data collection and reporting, drug supply chain and stock management, and disease surveillance. However, most implementations have been isolated pilots, focused on infectious diseases, and lacked robust evaluation methods. Most evaluations have focused on feasibility, usability and acceptability, with limited focus and evidence on clinical outcomes.
About the Digital Futures Postdoc Fellow
Johnblack K. Kabukye is a medical doctor and health informatics specialist at the Uganda Cancer Institute in Kampala, Uganda. He did a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery from Makerere University, a Master of Science in Health informatics from Karolinska Institute and Stockholm University, and a PhD in medical informatics from the University of Amsterdam.
His research interests are designing, implementing and evaluating digital health solutions for healthcare providers and patients in developing countries, including electronic medical records, patient advice telephone lines, and telehealth and artificial intelligence-enabled apps to support cervical cancer screening.
Main supervisor
John Owuor, PhD, Director, SPIDER Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) Stockholm University.
Co-supervisor
Susanne Nilsson, Researcher, Integrated product development and design, Machine design, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, KTH.
Watch the recorded presentation at the Digitalize in Stockholm 2023 event.
About the project
Objective
The goal of the project is to design reactive, intelligent planning and control algorithms for underwater vehicles which quantify and reason about risk as well as incorporate machine learning. This will enable the use of AUVs for more autonomous environmental data collection with reduced human involvement and, therefore, reduced human risk.
Background
Autonomous underwater vehicles have great potential for environmental monitoring and exploration, but there are important technical challenges that prevent their widespread use. Some of the major challenges are that GPS location information is not available underwater, communication underwater is limited, and there may be significant vehicle drift due to local hydrodynamic disturbances. As a result, it is difficult to ensure high levels of reliability for these vehicles. To bridge the reliability gap, this project aims to design and test planning and control algorithms that explicitly reason about uncertainty and produce intelligent policies to minimize that uncertainty while gathering information about the vehicle’s environment.
About the Digital Futures Postdoc Fellow
Chelsea Sidrane began her studies with a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Cornell University, where she developed an interest in dynamical systems and control theory. She went on to study machine learning and robot planning in her Master’s studies at Stanford University before beginning a PhD in the Stanford Intelligent Systems Laboratory focused on verifying neural networks. She defended her thesis, “Neural Network Verification for Nonlinear Systems”, in the summer of 2022. She is now a Digital Futures Postdoctoral Research Fellow at KTH based in the Planiacs group at the Division of Robotics, Perception and Learning (RPL).
Main supervisor
Dimos Dimarogonas, Professor in the Division of Decision and Control Systems, KTH
Ivan Stenius, Associate Professor in Vessel Engineering & Solid Mechanics, KTH
Co-supervisor
Anna Ståhl, Senior Researcher, Digital Systems, RISE
Watch the recorded presentation at the Digitalize in Stockholm 2023 event.
About the project
Objective
This project aims to produce the first set of design guidelines for developing digital social touch-haptic stimuli generated by technology that is capable of communicating social content. It aims to engage an experience-driven paradigm to study the building blocks of a digital social touch that is sensorially precise, socially recognisable and validated in a naturalistic environment, resulting in its intended social content being successfully recognised by the human recipient.
It will register social touch’s experiential and situational qualities in design terms and according to technical and numerical parameters that can be employed by the wider haptic design community, including computer scientists, roboticists and product designers. It will employ soft robotic actuators for their sensorially rich potential.
Background
Social touch is the most effective form of non-verbal communication, commonly used for greeting, reassurance, building a sense of togetherness, and conveying affection. The growing use of touch-enabled agents and robots for healthcare, teaching, and applications for telepresence calls for convincing digital touch that are capable of communicating social content. However, there are no existing guidelines for designing digital social touch. In real life, experiential factors such as the appearance and texture of the touch actuator material, contextual factors such as how and when the touch is introduced, where it is positioned on the body, and cultural and social backgrounds define how the human recipient perceives touch.
However, these factors have been mostly excluded when designing digital social touch within the technical community due to the limitation of a task-oriented design paradigm and the lack of access to tools and methods to engage the experiential qualities of social touch. This project will take several steps to address this gap and produce a design guide, a demonstratable prototype, and an open dataset.
About the Digital Futures Postdoc Fellow
Caroline Yan Zheng is a designer and researcher who works on creating embedded, tangible interfaces using soft robotics that enable emotionally rich experiences, with a PhD from the Royal College of Art UK. Her past work included developing an affect-, material-, and interaction-led (AMI-led) design framework to guide the form-giving process for affect-enabling interactive artefacts. Specifically, combining findings from neuroscience on comforting touch (CT-optimal touch) and the unique sensory qualities of tactile soft robotics, she developed and validated a wearable device (S-CAT) that simulates a gentle stroking touch.
She was an awardee of the MedTech SuperConnector programme in the UK for translating soft robotic haptic technology into healthcare applications and a co-investigator in the Cancer Research UK-funded project ‘Improving care through soft robotic tactile intervention – towards a smarter compassionate experience in cancer treatment (SOFTLI)’ (2019-2021). She believes that technologies that afford physical experience are the next wave of our digital futures. For this vision, she is also a passionate community builder. She has initiated and co-organised several international workshops on affective HRI and has guest edited a Special Issue on ‘Designing the robot body: critical perspectives on affective embodied interaction’, published in the Journal of Transactions in Human-Robot Interaction (THRI).
Main supervisor
Madeline Balaam, Professor, Division of Media Technology and Interaction Designs at KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Co-supervisor
Anna Ståhl, Senior Researcher, Digital Systems, RISE
About the project
Objective
Aligning with the Digital Futures call for a “rich and healthy life,” this research will explore designing for collective caring as the core of the next generation Femtech for menstrual and reproductive wellbeing. Using a cross-cultural approach (Sweden and India), the objective is to investigate what it means to nurture trust and cooperation when engaging menstruators with parents and/or partners to digitalize collective caring for intimate health. Here, it is crucial to acknowledge that the conventional methodological approach to participant recruitment and data collection inadequately addresses the stigma and language barriers inherent in the taboo nature of the topic.
Thus, using a qualitative method and participatory design approach, this research will explore assets of culture and heritage for crafting appropriate methods and designing Femtech to navigate taboos and build trust for facilitating a dialogue on the sensitive topic of intimate health and wellbeing. The motivation to undertake this research stems from a commitment to fostering equitable and period-positive futures where menstruating bodies are not stigmatized or seen as needing control, discipline, or fixing.
Background
Menstruation is a biological phenomenon experienced by millions of individuals daily around the globe, where varied stakeholders in a menstruator’s vicinity shape these experiences. Throughout the reproductive journey (menarche to menopause), parents and partners play pivotal roles in a menstruator’s life. In certain scenarios and contexts, the decision-making and/or financial power may be disproportionately in the hands of these two stakeholders. Thus, focusing on menstruators’ intimate health and well-being, it becomes imperative to expand the contemporary personal informatics approach to design Femtech by taking an ecological approach focusing on interpersonal cooperation to ideate, design, and implement Femtech.
About the Digital Futures Postdoc Fellow
As a qualitative researcher and interaction designer, Anupriya Tuli focuses on understanding and designing technology experiences toward just and equitable futures. Her research is situated at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), global health, taboo subjects, marginalization, and activism. She frequently engages with feminist perspectives, aiming to design socially responsible technologies that target health equity, focusing on women’s health, well-being, and empowerment.
She completed her PhD in Human-Centered Design at IIIT-Delhi, India, where she delved into the design of digital menstrual technologies to uncover how technology design can effectively address cultural taboos and systemic barriers to nurture positive menstrual experiences. She received fellowships from the Indian Government and Google to support her doctoral research. In addition to her academic endeavours, she is deeply involved in collaborative efforts with practitioners and non-governmental organizations in India, particularly focusing on initiatives related to menstrual health and well-being.
Main supervisor
Madeline Balaam, Professor, Division of Media Technology and Interaction Designs at KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Co-supervisor
Airi Lampinen, Associate Professor, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) at Stockholm University