Welcome! My name is Meagan (she/her) and I am a PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto. I am part of the Ready Lab, supervised by Dr. Alison Olechowski in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and the Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (ILead). Prior to this, I completed my master's at the University of Waterloo, where I was supervised by Dr. Ada Hurst in the Department of Management Sciences and Engineering. In Fall 2024, I was a Visiting Scholar in the Technology and Human Research Engineering Design (THRED) Group at the Pennsylvania State University under the supervision of Dr. Jessica Menold, funded by the Canadian Graduate Scholarships Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement.

My work broadly explores design collaboration, challenging the contexts in which we study design. I am fascinated by both fast and slow-paced design thinking, which has guided my main research interest to collaborative design at hackathons. My earlier work involved interviewing designers in hackathon teams to explore how design expertise influences team experiences. This research highlighted the significant impact of expertise on team dynamics and inspired my current work on conflict within hackathon teams. I aim to understand how conflict can contribute to creative outcomes, ultimately developing strategies to leverage conflict constructively. Most of my hackathon research is grounded in dual-process theory, considering how the hackathon structure affects design cognition. My future research will expand on these themes, considering how different contexts (e.g., innovation challenges, maker spaces) may impact design decision-making, teamwork, and creativity.