Faculty Champion:Julieta Matos Castano
Julieta Matos-Castaño is a postdoctoral researcher at Human Centred Design Group of the University of Twente, in the Netherlands. In her research, Julieta develops design methods and tools to support the exploration of responsible smart city futures. Next to her postdoc, Julieta works at the DesignLab of the University of Twente. At the DesignLab, Julieta is further developing the "Responsible Futuring" approach with her colleagues, in particular bridging academic insights and practice. The "Responsible Futuring" approach aims at surfacing different stakeholder worldviews, embracing conflicts constructively, and opening up new avenues to tackle societal challenges and explore potential futures collaboratively.
Julieta has broad international and interdisciplinary experience both in academia and practice. She studied Aeronautical Engineering at the Technical University of Madrid (Spain), and has worked as an airport planner in various infrastructure projects. In 2009, Julieta arrived at the Netherlands to specialize in Public Private Partnerships, a field that brought her to the Indian Institute of Madras (Chennai, India) to write her second master thesis and explore the influence of culture and institutions in collaborative practices. Her thesis won the Civil Engineering MSc-thesis prize at the University of Twente.
In 2016, Julieta finished her PhD at the University of Twente, a career step that introduced her to designerly ways of working. Her thesis explores the influence of frames of reference on the occurrence of dilemmas in multi-actor decision making contexts. As part of her PhD, she developed 'the Dilemma Cube', a collaboration tool to make dilemmas explicit, and help stakeholders to use them constructively. After obtaining her PhD, Julieta worked as a change management consultant for an international consultancy firm supporting organizations to develop and implement stakeholder engagement strategies for digital transformations.
Besides her role at the University of Twente, Julieta currently works as a creative consultant for various clients, establishing collaborations to envision futures and to prepare actionable plans to realize their opportunities and overcome challenges ahead.
In 2019, Julieta co-founded the Speculative Futures chapter in the Hague (The Netherlands). Speculative Futures is a meetup community that focuses on work and practice in the fields of Speculative and Critical Design, Design Fiction, Futures Studies, and Strategic Foresight. Together with a team, Julieta organizes events every 3-4 months, ranging from speaker nights to workshops and hands-on experience with speculative and futures design.
Related links
