Digital Commons Network^™

More Than "Programs For Women": Centering Incarcerated Women's Voices In The Evaluation Of Prison Programming, Winter Ohara-Frantz

University Honors Theses

This thesis examines whether correctional programming in women's prisons reflects the self-identified goals and aspirations of incarcerated women. Existing research demonstrates that prison programming can provide meaningful benefits, including skill development, emotional growth, and preparation for reentry. However, much of this scholarship evaluates women based on institutional outcomes rather than asking whether available programs align with women's own educational, vocational, and personal goals. Drawing on survey responses from 23 formerly incarcerated women across the United States, this mixed-methods study explores participants' experiences with vocational, post-secondary, parenting, and other correctional programs. Quantitative findings indicate that while most respondents viewed programming as …

Defying Impossibility: Critical Qualitative Reorientations To Black Lgbtqia+ Sense Of Belonging, Olivia H. Hunte

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Belonging is a human need central to survival and can be cultivated within all spheres of life. Social environments are vital for experiencing a sense of belonging. In some social environments, Black LGBTQIA+ people encounter greater impediments to their daily lives with consequences for survival, including threatening their belonging needs. Within the United States, systems of oppression create and inform conditions within social environments that can potentially thwart pathways to belonging for Black LGBTQIA+ people. Thus, fulfillment of belonging needs for Black LGBTQIA+ people is one of nuance, pain, resilience, hope, harm, trauma, resistance, and healing; scant research is available …

Marginality As Lens: Abū Ḥāmid Al-Qudsī’S Writings And Mamluk Urbanism, Moaaz Lafi

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis takes the life and works of Abū Ḥāmid al-Qudsī (also known as al-Maqdisī), a Shāfiʿī jurist and Cairene historian who died in the late ninth/fifteenth century, as a point of entry into a central question: how was knowledge about the city produced in Mamluk Cairo? Addressing this question requires engagement with the multiple contexts, political, social, and religious, that shaped and conditioned the production of knowledge in that period. Moreover, a critical engagement with the author’s own biography, through a careful reading of biographical dictionaries and historical chronicles, is essential for uncovering further dimensions of how such knowledge …

Documenting Death: A Question Of Sovereignty In The Cairo Geniza, Thomas Adkins

Theses and Dissertations

How can death offer a case study for the question of sovereignty in eleventh to thirteenth century Egypt as it was performed by sovereigns, officials, and subjects alike, and, in this context, how can the documentary practices preserved in the Geniza be understood as an instrument to perform sovereignty? This thesis uses death as a case study in the same way that scholars of the medieval Islamic world have studied taxation, administration, and ceremonials to understand sovereignty as it was performed by the state, officials, and subjects. This performance of sovereignty by each implicated actor left a rich documentary trail, …

Women And Wars: Understanding Women’S Political Empowerment Post- Conflict In France, Lebanon, And Sierra Leone, Alaa S. Sayed

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis attempts to discusses how conflict can be a time of change for women and how conflict can be a crucial aspect for change and improvement. Conflict provides a chance for the women to witness and experience the disruption of gender roles, which was a common practice during wartime, as women were placed in roles that were not officially theirs, according to what society adheres to or ascribes as acceptable roles for women. The conflict is presented as a “window” of opportunity. However, the reality of the situation of this “window” is not uniform across all post-conflict societies; the …

Breaking The Silence: A Content And Expert Analysis Of The 2025 Ramadan Series Lam Shamseya's Framing And Subversion Of Child Sexual Abuse Discourse In Egypt, Maya Abouelnasr

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes how the 2025 Egyptian TV series Lam Shamseya served as a sociocultural intervention and awareness platform for reframing and subverting the typical child sexual abuse (CSA) discourse in Egypt. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study triangulates framing theory and two complementary tools of the critical discourse analysis (CDA) and the circuit of culture model through a scene-level content analysis of 304 scenes across all 15 episodes of the series and ten semi-structured interviews with media experts, media practitioners, and psychologists. Key findings include reported corroboration of subversion of traditional tropes and archetypes, as well as reframing of …

Teaching The Eye To Slow Down: Attentive Noticing As Ecological Practice, Sara Ko

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This visual essay unfolds through acts of careful noticing. Drawing from materials encountered through repeated walks across forested landscapes on Vancouver Island, it translates moss, soil, plant matter, and animal traces into immersive digital environments. Working through atmosphere, texture, and shifting forms rather than fixed representation, the project explores how perception is shaped by time spent with what is often overlooked. Digital processes are used not to stabilize or explain, but to hold uncertainty, fragility, and partial presence. The work invites readers to slow their looking and consider how learning, relation, and meaning can emerge through sustained attention.

Living Through Misinformation: An Autoethnography Of Autism In Chinese Communities, Joy Lu

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This critical autoethnographic essay examines how misconception, misinformation, and disinformation shape understandings of autism within Chinese communities and produce tangible harm for autistic individuals and their families. Drawing on lived experience, advocacy work, digital observation, and cross-cultural analysis, it explores how language, medical practices, social media, and professional authority sustain persistent misrepresentation.

The essay argues that this misinformation is not merely the result of ignorance, but a socially reinforced and institutionally supported system of knowledge. By situating personal encounters within broader cultural and structural contexts, it highlights the interconnected roles of language, power, and exclusion in shaping autistic lives. It …

Pretty Much From Scratch: A Braided Essay On Autistic Diagnosis, Creativity, Identity, And Community, Jenée Stanfield

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This braided essay uses memoir and research to explore autistic diagnosis, creativity, identity, and community. It examines how the misinformation around these topics harm and “other” autistics: the fallacy of diagnostic objectivity/neutrality, the dual myths of autistic hyper- and hypo-creativity, and autism as an identity defined solely by medical professionals. The memoir sections play with point of view and genre.

Jenée is a late-realized autistic with ADHD and OCD, who identifies as neurodivergent and neuroqueer. She lives in Washington state with her spouse and dog. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and is currently a Master …

The Unexpected Gift: Using Hip-Hop And Autoethnographic Methods To Challenge The “Symbolic Death” Discourse Of A Child’S Autism Diagnosis, Adam Ellis

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This article explores the social construction of autism through an autoethnographic account of parenting an autistic child in Canada. Drawing on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s grief model, neurodiversity scholarship, and post-traumatic growth theory, the paper examines how parents may experience grief, uncertainty, and the collapse of imagined futures following an autism diagnosis, while also arguing that much of this distress is produced by ableist and deficit-oriented social systems rather than autism itself. Using arts-based research, including a rap song and music video, the article explores: (1) what it is like to receive an autism diagnosis as a parent; (2) the grieving process …

Learning From Inexperienced Users’ Early Engagement With Food Tracking, Isil Oygur, Saadet Tikac Andic

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Current food tracking applications are largely designed to support behaviour change among users who track their food intake to meet predefined goals. As a result, individuals who are curious about food tracking but do not have specific goals remain underserved, limiting the potential of these tools for preventive care. To address this gap, we conducted a three-phase interview study using an existing food journaling application as a probe to reimagine food tracking experiences for inexperienced users. Thirty-one participants used the app for 14 days and discussed their views on healthy eating, food practices, and their tracking experiences. Our analysis identified …

Ddenso: An Evaluation-Driven Methodology For Information Visualisations, Michele Mauri, Elena Aversa, Anna Cattaneo, María De Los Ángeles Briones Rojas

DRS Biennial Conference Series

When designing Information Visualisations for Media and Information Literacy (MIL) initiatives, a significant challenge lies in ensuring that they effectively transmit and consolidate knowledge, particularly when the Information Visualisation literacy of the audience is unknown. Applying a Research through Design approach, this article describes a meta-process: the reflective and iterative path that led to the definition of DDENSO, a replicable design methodology for creating and evaluating Information Visualisations that allow for knowledge retention. Grounded in prior theoretical and practical experience in Information Design, DDENSO emerged through the development of the artefacts for a MIL exhibition exploring the social implications of …

Designing Motion Identity: Exploring The Aesthetic Expression Of Brand Style Through System Motion, Xinyi Xie, Yinman Guo, Zican Chen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study investigates how system motion enhances aesthetic experience and shapes users’ interpretation of brand style. Using Windows 11, macOS, and HarmonyOS as representative cases, the study analyses four categories of system animations through a motor-level framework comprising temporal, spatial, and transformational attributes. Twelve motion samples were coded, and participants evaluated each sample using perceptual adjectives. The results show that consistent attribute patterns across functional categories lead to stable aesthetic tendencies, while differences emerge from how each system repeatedly applies these attributes. These attribute biases create distinct perceptual profiles, indicating that motion can function as a subtle medium for expressing …

Interiority As A Pedagogical Approach In Interior Design Studio Education, Selin Aktan Abraham, Fulya Özbey

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As the central platform of design education, interior design studios function as dynamic learning environments that advance creativity and sensitivity to the social and spatial dimensions of design. Although the experiential qualities of space are conceptually acknowledged within studio pedagogy, the notion of ‘interiority’ remains unstudied compared to the emphasis placed on technical requirements. This paper positions interiority as a critical yet underexplored component of interior design pedagogy. Through a literature mapping and thematic synthesis, this paper defines five core dimensions of interiority as (1) spatial, (2) sensory, (3) affective, (4) identity-related, and (5) temporal, then correlates these dimensions in …

Designing With Care: Proposing An Ethical Canvas For Co-Design With Marginalised Groups, Hilkka Lydén, Soile Juujärvi, Satu Miettinen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper addresses gaps in ethical guidance for socially oriented designers engaged in co-design with marginalised groups. It introduces an ethical canvas for planning and evaluating co-design, developed through a collaborative inquiry led by a practitioner-researcher with long experience in community-based design. The canvas was informed by the authoring team’s expertise in service design, ethical decision-making, and socially engaged design research. It makes ethical deliberation visible and actionable, especially where multiple or conflicting values are present. The canvas invites designers to reflect on their stance, engage with participants’ lived realities, and navigate tensions between institutional expectations and situated needs. It …

Enframing Creativity: Speculations On Design Education's Transformations In The Age Of Generative Ai, Alireza Sharifi, Michael Hohl, Fredrik Skatar

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The rapid advancement of AI technologies necessitates a shift from reactive adoption to speculative inquiry into long-term consequences for educational systems. Grounded in Martin Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology," this research examines the epistemology of AI in design education. Methodologically, it employs speculative futurology, integrating speculative design, critical design, and scenario planning to explore possible futures, culminating in a philosophical mapping framework based on Heidegger's critical stance. The findings reveal a critical temporal mismatch between rapid AI capability growth and slower educational adaptation, creating urgency for human-centered frameworks. The research concludes that design education's future depends on consciously cultivating Critical …

Reframing Practice: Architectural Design Research And The Expanding Role Of The Architect, Manuela Triggianese, Juan Sádaba, Lee Moreau, Paolo Ciuccarelli, Kees Kaan, Georg Vrachliotis, María Risueño

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Architecture extends far beyond the design of buildings and cities, engaging with environmental, technological, and societal challenges. As practice evolves, so must the research that supports it. This theme track examines architecture’s expanding role in collaboration, communication, and service, positioning it as a research-driven discipline and a tool for inquiry, innovation, and responsiveness to communities and stakeholders. Operating across systems, social processes, and technological infrastructures, architecture is increasingly understood as an interdisciplinary practice. The track strengthens Architectural Design Research by addressing its evolving methodologies and its role in knowledge production. Contributions explore co-creation, artificial intelligence, data as design material, and …

Design And More-Than-Human: Forming Ecologies Of Practices, Laura Popplow

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This editorial introduces a set of emerging and consolidating practices in more-than-human design, situating them within a shifting landscape where coherence is not yet achieved—and may not be the goal. Rather than stabilizing the field, the contributions gathered in this meta-track move within an “ecology of practice” (Stengers) that remains attentive to frictions, partial connections, and unresolved tensions. Braiding both interrelated but also incoherent experiences, the authors of this panel work through relational agency, somatic literacy, and productive friction: outlining and reconfiguring design beyond human-centered paradigms. Across contexts—from biodesign and biodiverse architecture to embodied experiments with non-human perception—design is approached …

Unlocking Dormant Products: Systemic Leverage Points And Strategies For Household Circularity, Karin Aasa, Janne Huys, Helena Strömberg, Oskar Rexfelt

DRS Biennial Conference Series

A functioning circular economy relies on households recirculating products once they are no longer needed. However, households often accumulate products in wardrobes, cupboards, and other storage spaces. While contemporary design practices often reinforce this through encouraging new purchases and attachment, unlocking dormant products for reuse emerges as a new challenge for design. This paper draws on a systems analysis of how products move into, around, and sometimes out of the home, based on household interviews and visits. The analysis reveals how products slip out of use and become forgotten as stored mass, requiring significant effort to recirculate. We identify key …

Critical Reflectors, Bridge-Builders, And Sense-Makers: How Designers Intervene In Ai’S Reproduction Of Gender Inequality, Sanita Budihardjo, Kazjon Grace, Josie Young, Yiying Wu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In recent years, AI has become increasingly entangled with design practice, whether as a tool, a design material, or a collaborator. Alongside these opportunities, it is necessary to recognise AI as a socio-technical system that reproduces existing gender hierarchies. Treating design as a political site of intervention; this paper examines how designers can ground their practice in addressing gender bias in AI. Drawing on a scoping review of gender bias in AI, feminist design perspectives, and existing interventions in design research, we argue that designers occupy a consequential role as critical reflectors, bridge-builders, and sense-makers, uniquely positioned to question how …

Motivation And Reflective Processes In Service-Learning Design Projects: Insights From A Visual Communication Design Studio, Alejandra Poblete Pérez, Emilio J. Castro-Navarro, Alfredo Mora Briones, Pilar Del Real Westphal, Marcela Cabello Mora

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study examines structured self-reflection as a formative assessment tool within a Visual Communication Design Studio incorporating the service-learning (S-L) methodology, analysing motivational dynamics experienced by twenty undergraduate students. Using Thematic Analysis of 420 weekly responses, the study draws on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to map reflections on strengths, weaknesses, and intentions against needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The analysis revealed a consistent pattern: strengths centred on competence and relatedness, while weaknesses highlighted motivational tensions and emotional blockages regarding self-regulation and project management. The dominant dynamic was the interplay between autonomy and relatedness, with “teamwork” emerging as the most recurrent …

Agnes As A Critical Wearable: Mediating Age, Materiality, And Embodied Expertise, Elisa Cardamone, Taylor Brennan, Sophia Ashebir, Lisa D'Ambrosio, Joseph F. Coughlin

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design is increasingly engaging with the body through soft systems, wearables, and responsive materials, exploring how material interactions shape experiences of care and inclusion. This paper examines the Age Gain Now Empathy System (AGNES) - a wearable suit simulating the chronic physical conditions and functional changes associated with older age - as a critical, soma-focused design intervention. Drawing on auto-ethnographic reflection and participant observation, we present a theoretical and methodological analysis. We argue that AGNES' critical materiality actively mediates how the ageing body is read and made visible, inviting embodied understanding and supporting co-creation partnerships. We analyse how this wearable …

Uncovering The Health Impacts Of Extreme Temperatures In Western United States Prisons Through Interdisciplinary Architectural And Epidemiological Methods, Serena Langdon-Dimidjian, Allison Macht, Shawhin Roudbari, Katherine Lemasters, David Ciplet, Elizabeth Corrado, Michael Clifton, Bob Eisman

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Mass incarceration is a public health and architectural crisis in the United States. Extreme temperatures present mental and physical health challenges for incarcerated populations, exacerbated by the architectural strategies of carceral spaces. At the intersection of architecture and epidemiology we investigated how participants could leverage architectural drawings to analyze the inhumane temperatures they experienced in state prisons. Through interviews and focus groups with formerly incarcerated people, we found that the method of participatory architectural drawing allowed participants and researchers to spatialize the impact of extreme temperatures on mental and physical health as mediated by architectural space. Through a collaboration between …

The R’S Have It: Navigating The Playground Of Design For Health Through Design Rationale, Bard Wartena, Derek Kuipers

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper examines how systemic designers in health navigate plural perspectives and overlapping quality regimes. We introduce the Playground of Design as four interconnected spaces of problem, design, change, and solution, together with four R’s, Rapidness, Rigour, Relevance, and Resonance, as conversational lenses for articulating design rationale in plural settings. Two Dutch cases illustrate this approach. Bias Blaster, a serious game for adolescents recovering from psychosis, is reread retrospectively to reconstruct systemic design rationale. E-Health Junior, a long-running e-health consortium, is reconstructed through interviews and translated into a pedagogical workshop for perspective-taking. We argue that combining the Playground of Design …

Co-Living With Agentic Ai: Reframing Design Research For Experiential Trust In Everyday Domestic Life, Jay Moon

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As artificial intelligence evolves into agentic, adaptive, and generative systems, design research faces an epistemic shift. AI assistants, once reactive interfaces, are increasingly experienced as proactive presences that shape everyday life. This transformation reframes trust, no longer limited to technical reliability, transparency, or explainability, but also emerging as a relational and experiential phenomenon formed through interaction. While industry emphasizes technical trust, including privacy, security, and system reliability, design research must also address experiential trust, a felt confidence grounded in the lived quality of human and AI coexistence. Focusing on the smart home as a case of everyday domestic life, where …

Visual Thinking With Artificial Intelligence And Augmented And Virtual Reality, Peter Stewart Harkins, Jan Michel Auernhammer

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Visual thinking, a foundation of design, is often framed as a reflective conversation between a designer and their medium. Recent advances in generative Artificial Intelligence and immersive technologies, such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, are profoundly reshaping this conversation. This article explores how these digital tools augment the visual design process, moving beyond traditional methods. Through a series of autoethnographic, practice-based examples, we demonstrate several key transformations, particularly: AI-driven dialogues that rapidly iterate within a visual language and translate across languages; embodied, spatial sketching in AR/VR that enables new forms of visuospatial reasoning; and novel methods for perspective-taking and collaboration …

Ai And Thou: Empathy, Artificial Intelligence And Alterity In Design, Matt Sinclair, Peter Buwert

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Empathy is a key differentiator in Nigel Cross' model of Design as a third discipline, and has become established as a vital component of both research and practice. Yet agreed definitions of empathy in design remain elusive, and the roles it should play have been questioned and problematised. Recent developments in the capabilities of Large Language Models have generated discussion of the possibility of both simulated and actual empathic behaviour by artificial intelligences. In this paper we gather and synthesise relevant philosophical debates on the nature and operation of AI-empathy. Concepts of alterity in the work of Martin Buber and …

Designing Knowledge Otherwise: The Bembo Officina Editoriale As A Case For Alternative Academic Publishing, Raimonda Riccini, Simone Spagnol, Giampiero Dalai, Stefania D'Eri, Manuel Zanettin, Giovanni Borga, Luciano Perondi

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents Bembo Officina Editoriale (BOE) as a design-research experiment addressing the epistemological, ethical, and technical tensions in contemporary scientific publishing. BOE develops an open-source, automated editorial workflow—based on Markdown–Python pipelines—to generate fully editable InDesign outputs, reducing production costs and enabling accessibility without compromising design quality. Rooted in a non-profit academic framework, the model reclaims editorial autonomy while resisting the inequities of commercial open-access models based on Article Processing Charges. BOE thus proposes an alternative publishing infrastructure where automation sustains pluralism and transparency. The contribution situates this approach within a critical reflection on the historical continuity between typographic rationalization …

Design For Well-Being: A Preliminary Investigation On Design Interventions In The Context Of Loneliness Economy, Jinxia Liu, Angela Giambattista, Loredana Di Lucchio

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Loneliness has become a prominent public health issue that causes negative consequences at both individual and social levels. Concurrently, the market is actively responding and gradually forms the loneliness economy, addressing human emotional needs by offering related products and services. However, the largely implemented digital solutions remain problematic. This paper aims at investigating how design research has addressed the loneliness issue and what roles design plays in addressing loneliness. A mixed methodological approach was adopted, combining analysis of keyword co-occurrence and a meta-narrative review. The results identify the threefold design contributions: building and enhancing social connectedness, creating artificial companions and …

Mediating Heritage Through Design: Participatory Approaches To Post-Digital Transformation, Lorenzo Barberis, Lorenzo Arena, Vlasios Kasapakis, Viktor Malakuczi, Ioannis Chatziannakis

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This research explores how design mediates the digital transformation of cultural heritage through hybrid and multisensory installations in archaeological contexts. Using the Case Romane del Celio in Rome as a pilot site for the European project HeritAdapt, it aims to redistribute visitor flows and promote sustainable tourism by enhancing the intangible value of minor sites. The study contributes to the post-digital museology debate by framing design as a critical, participatory practice operating across physical and virtual dimensions, fostering collaboration among engineering, management and restoration. Combining Service Design, Extended Reality and Artificial Intelligence technologies, qualitative research and iterative prototyping guided the …