Dr Paulina Yurman

Biography

I am a Wellcome Research Fellow, Designer and Lecturer. I am the recipient of a Wellcome Research Award grant for my project Maternal Machines: Design Speculations about Fantasies of Care , a four-year long project that explores ideations and imaginaries with new technologies in spaces related to maternal and infant care, looking to interrogate existing narratives and to speculate and develop design opportunities leading to wellbeing.

I am interested in our ambivalent and complex relationship with technology in daily life. My PhD explored the role of smartphones for mothers and young children, where I designed a series of experimental, semi-functional artefacts that I used to investigate experiences using the smartphone during the childrearing task, and more generally, ambivalent attitudes towards technology in family life.

I was research associate in the EPSRC funded project Family Rituals 2.0 project, a multidisciplinary collaboration between the Royal College of Art’s Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and Newcastle University. The project investigated the role of rituals in families that experience regular separation due to work travel, and the possibilities for digital technologies to interpret them.

I lecture in industrial design at University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins.