Teaching Human-centered Design to Engineers: Continuous Improvement in a Cornerstone Course

Abstract

Catalina holds a bachelor degree in Civil Engineering, with concentration in Structural Design. After graduating and working at an Engineering firm in Chile, Catalina completed a master's degree in media studies at The New School, and a MFA in Design and Technology @ Parsons The New School for Design, New York. At DiLab Catalina teaches and coordinates the Engineering Challenges course which aims to initiate freshmen students in to engineering design practices by encouraging students to develop a project following a user-centered design process. She also teaches Visual Thinking, the exploratory course of the Major in Engineering, Design, and Innovation. This course addresses the theories and ideas that sustain the visual thinking process as well as methodologies and practical implementation of visual representation through infographics, computer graphics, and physical computing. The course focus on representing the narrative of the findings using visual tools. Catalina has been directing FabLabUC since 2015. FabLabUC is a fabrication laboratory located at the Innovation Center, PUC. Currently she is pursuing a PhD in Computer Sciences with a research focus on Engineering Education at PUC.