Profile
I am a postdoctoral researcher working at the intersection of Design, Human–Computer Interaction (HCI), and Science and Technology Studies (STS) research. My work explores how to design technology that can engage and facilitative engagement with sensitive, complex, and often controversial experiences of care, with a particular focus on reproductive healthcare.
At Queen Mary University of London, I am working on the Pregnancy and Medicines project, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Here, I am exploring how birthing people make sense of their experiences, what concerns they have, and what strategies they use when making decisions about medicines in conversation with clinicians. I use Research through Design, co-design, and qualitative methods, as well as drawings, probes, and critical and speculative artefacts to open spaces for reflection, communication, and care within both clinical and everyday contexts.
I completed my PhD in April 2025 at the Interaction Design Group, University of Twente (Netherlands), where my research examined how technologies can be designed to support compassion within mental healthcare and care after abortion. Following this, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, contributing to a transdisciplinary project in close collaboration with TU Delft, focused on the design and integration of robotic systems to support nursing in the hospital.
Across these projects, I was inspired by feminist and intersectional theoretical frameworks, and practice-based design methodologies. Rather than seeking to simplify or resolve these experiences, my work critically explores how design can acknowledge and sustain ambiguity, plurality, and care within in more-than rational ways in care and healthcare practices.
Research
Research Interests:
For further details about my research, projects and interests, please visit my website: benedettalusi.com
Publications
- What We Took From Metaphors: A Case of Designing For Care After Abortion
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3679318.3685347
- Designing compassionate experiences for mental health and wellbeing: a scoping review
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0144929X.2025.2559290
- Reproducing Crisis: A Walkthrough Review of Abortion Care Infrastructure Technologies
https://dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.1145/3737609.3747118
- Caring for Reproductive Justice: Design in Response to Adversity
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3678884.3681832
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