Workshop @ Aarhus 2025, August 19

In line with the ‘Computing (X) Crisis’ theme, this workshop aims to address a vital aspect of designing computing technology in

challenging circumstances. Specifically, this workshop explores the challenges of participatory and engagement-driven approaches (PEDAs) in sensitive and marginalized contexts. Although PEDAs emerged from workplace democracy and structured labor environments, their application in crisis-affected and vulnerable communities raises ethical and methodological tensions. Researchers navigating these complexities must critically examine power imbalances, extractive participation, and agency in design. In this workshop, participants will collaboratively create tangible outputs by making zines while reflecting on their experiences, sharing challenges, and developing strategies for ethical participation. The workshop fosters a supportive space for mutual learning, centering care, inclusion, and researcher well-being in participation-based research. Find the submitted proposal for Aarhus here: LINK

Organizers

Nimra Ahmed

University of Zurich

Nimra is a PhD researcher at the University of Zurich whose work lies at the intersection of Feminist HCI, social justice, and community-led technology design for vulnerable populations. Her research explores how digital technologies can support awareness, help-seeking, and healing for individuals affected by gender-based violence, with a special focus on forced marriages. Rooted in community-led, trauma-informed, and feminist methodologies, Nimra works closely with NGOs and communities to ensure that those most affected shape the technologies intended to support them. Beyond academia, Nimra is actively engaged in feminist organizing through the Zurich feminist strike collective and supports various community and NGO-led initiatives focused on empowerment, activism, and care.

Luise Arn

University of Zurich

Lu is a former economist turned data scientist with a passion for data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI). She is currently in her last year as a PhD candidate at the People and Computing Lab at the University of Zurich. In her research, she is exploring tools, such as storytelling, to make data science and AI more intuitive and accessible for a broader spectrum of people. Her work aims to empower the next generation to translate modern concepts of AI into a desirable future.

Natalia Obukhova

University of Zurich

Natasha (dimunitive from Natalia) is starting as a PhD student at the People-Oriented Computing lab. Her research focuses on supporting grief and bereavement via unconventional ways and currently involves games research. Her previous work involved exploring researchers' safety when working with traumatized populations.

Nicolai Brodersen Hansen

Aalborg University

I am currently enjoying life as an assistant professor in Computer Science at Aalborg University in the Human-Centered Computing research group. My research is situated within HCI and Participatory Design, and I focus on understanding, modeling and improving digital tools and activities that support design-based collaboration in a range of domains, primarily with a civic bent. I work by collaborating with industrial partners, municipalities, and users on real-life problems. These efforts lead to models and frameworks for understanding empowerment in different domains, as well as prototypes that demonstrate value in natural settings and acts as bridges between academic research and practical concerns.

Nadia Campo Woytuk

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Nadia Campo Woytuk (she/they) is a PhD student in Interaction Design at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, exploring critical feminist design of technologies for the intimate body and the social and environmental ecologies it entangles. She mainly uses Research through Design methods, including making with textiles and biomaterials, as well as participatory and speculative approaches.

Anupria Tuli

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Anupriya (she/her) is a Digital Futures Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Interaction Design team (IxD) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. Focusing on health equity, she works at the intersection of HCI, global health, and taboo. She engages with feminist perspectives to understand and craft sociotechnical experiences toward building just and equitable futures for all.

Karin Hansson

Södertörn University

Karin Hansson is a professor of media technology at Södertörn University. Dr. Hansson has written extensively about technology-based participation from a critical design perspective. She is currently the project leader of the research project #MeToo Activism in Sweden and in the steering committee for the profile area Digital Transformations at Södertörn University.

Angelika Strohmayer

Northumbria University

I am an Assistant Professor at Northumbria University’s School of Design, Arts, and Creative Industries and co-leader of the Design Feminisms Research Group in the school and Gendered Violence and Abuse Interdisciplinary Research Theme that works across all faculties of the university. My research sits at various intersections of disciplines, theory, and practice. The work I am most passionate about is deeply collaborative in nature and works across various sectors (eg. support services, heritage sector, local government etc.) and includes people with many different forms of expertise (eg. lived experience, frontline staff, management, policymakers, regulators, etc.). I primarily work with people in difficult life situations, exploring the role participatory making can have in developing trauma-informed hopeful practices that address both immediate crises and structural issues.

Elaine M. Huang

University of Zurich

Elaine M. Huang is an Associate Professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the Department of Informatics at the University of Zurich, where she leads the People and Computing group. Her group’s research spans HCI, CSCW, and Ubiquitous Computing with particular focuses on sustainability, social good, gender and computing, health and wellness, and accessibility. Her work is interdisciplinary in nature and relies largely on qualitative methods influenced by approaches from psychology, health, and cultural anthropology.

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