Futures Of Socio-Technical Systems (Cities, Infrastructure, Innovation)
Dr. Laura Forlano
Professor and Researcher at the Intersection of Design and Emerging Technologies
Laura Forlano is an Associate Professor of Design at the Institute of Design and Affiliated Faculty in the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology where she is Director of the Critical Futures Lab.
Her work as writer, social scientist and design researcher has earned her both Fulbright and National Science Foundation scholarships.
In 2018-2019, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. In 2019-2020, Forlano was an Institute of Advanced Study Fellow (IAS) at Durham University (UK), working on a project called “Material Imagination”
Forlano’s research is focused on the aesthetics and politics at the intersection between design and emerging technologies.
Over the past ten years, she has studied the materialities and futures of socio-technical systems such as autonomous vehicles and smart cities; 3D printing, local manufacturing and innovation ecosystems; automation, distributed labor practices and the future of work;
and, computational fashion, smart textiles and wearable medical technologies.
She is an editor of three books: Bauhaus Futures (MIT Press 2019), digitalSTS (Princeton University Press 2019) and From Social Butterfly to Engaged Citizen (MIT Press 2011).
Her research and writing has been published in peer-reviewed journals including She Ji, Catalyst, Demonstrations, Spheres, Design Issues, the Journal of Peer Production, Fibreculture, Digital Culture & Society, ADA, Journal of Urban Technology, First Monday, The Information Society, Journal of Community Informatics, IEEE Pervasive Computing and Science and Public Policy.
She received her Ph.D. in communications from Columbia University.
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Laura Forlano is an Associate Professor of Design at the Institute of Design and Affiliated Faculty in the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology where she is Director of the Critical Futures Lab.
Her work as writer, social scientist and design researcher has earned her both Fulbright and National Science Foundation scholarships.
In 2018-2019, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. In 2019-2020, Forlano was an Institute of Advanced Study Fellow (IAS) at Durham University (UK), working on a project called “Material Imagination”
Forlano’s research is focused on the aesthetics and politics at the intersection between design and emerging technologies.
Over the past ten years, she has studied the materialities and futures of socio-technical systems such as autonomous vehicles and smart cities; 3D printing, local manufacturing and innovation ecosystems; automation, distributed labor practices and the future of work;
and, computational fashion, smart textiles and wearable medical technologies.
She is an editor of three books: Bauhaus Futures (MIT Press 2019), digitalSTS (Princeton University Press 2019) and From Social Butterfly to Engaged Citizen (MIT Press 2011).
Her research and writing has been published in peer-reviewed journals including She Ji, Catalyst, Demonstrations, Spheres, Design Issues, the Journal of Peer Production, Fibreculture, Digital Culture & Society, ADA, Journal of Urban Technology, First Monday, The Information Society, Journal of Community Informatics, IEEE Pervasive Computing and Science and Public Policy.
She received her Ph.D. in communications from Columbia University.
