Laia Turmo Vidal

Hello, I am Laia. My research explores the intersection of interaction design, body experiences, and well-being.

I investigate novel sensorial and body-centered interactive paradigms to design for health and well-being. In particular, I am highly interested in the potential of sensory-driven digital innovations to transform how we perceive, interact with, and relate to our bodies. My premise is that fostering these transformations through designing careful entanglements between bodies, technologies, materials and practices can create novel and sustainable ways to foster physical, emotional and social well-being.

My work combines Research through Design, physical prototyping, material experiences and body-centered design methodologies. I am deeply committed to designing for a plurality of bodies, and to do so I draw from theories such as phenomenology and feminism, and apply participatory and soma design methods. I am also deeply committed to positively contribute to people's quality of life. Thus, I have worked extensively on designing digital interventions for various populations in everyday health and well-being domains, including sports and fitness, rehabilitation, physical inactivity, and professional dance.

My broader research interests include wearable and tangible technology, body perception, personalization, and the development of methodologies that center the human body and movement in design.

I hold a PhD and MSc in Human Computer Interaction (Uppsala University, Sweden) and a BSc in Multimedia Technologies (Polytechnic University of Catalunya, Spain). I am currently a Digital Future’s Postdoc Researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Previously, I was a postdoc in an ERC-CoG grant at i_mBODY Lab (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain) and a research visitor at University College London Interaction Center (UK).

Are you a Master student at KTH?

If you are interested in soma design, wearable or on-skin computing, or sensory technologies for health and wellbeing applications, feel free to contact me via email for the possibility of master thesis supervision.