monica regalado ❤

monica regalado ❤

gadigal land (australia), she/her

About

Design researcher and anthropologist. Lifelong student of everything. Want to responsibly and respectfully make good things pleaseeeeeee. Say hi!

Work Experience

2020 — Now
Design researcher at Canva & Affinity

Working on tools for visual communication and creativity with a lovely team, across both Canva and Affinity (affinity.serif.com). Studying how people act and think, and co-building a new research culture ✨

I encounter lots of big research topics that I try to apply a lot of big anthropology energy to: collaboration, media, creative confidence, inspiration and idea formation, etc.

2022 — 2022
Tutor at University of sydney
Sydney

Taught a new class on qualitative research in interaction design. Syllabus included: research ethics, positionality & reflexivity, qualitative methodology, ethnography, experience sampling, thematic analysis, and critical thinking.

2018 — 2020
Ux researcher at Google

Working on public transportation experiences @ google maps

2017 — 2018
Ux researcher at Airteam

Design research for clients in various domains; pregnancy, non-profits, education, movie discovery, and more

2017 — 2017
Teaching assistant at University of sydney

Taught undergraduate students about human-centred product design, prototyping, and research methods.

2016 — 2017

Made digital spaces more inclusive through evaluative research with people with disability and consulting digital teams.

Education

2022 — Now
Anthropology at University of Sydney

Part-time diploma. Particularly exploring these out of my personal interest: time, futures, creativity, improvisation, epistemology, uncertainty and imagination.

2020 — 2021
[Discontinued] Master of urban planning & environment at RMIT university

Edit: Oopsies i dropped out 🥰

Urban Planning is more-than-human-centred design for cities, environments, and policies. I'm currently doing subjects on governance, social justice, applied social research, urban and environmental problems. This is a personal interest, but it enriches my design and research thinking in many ways.

2015 — 2020
Bachelor of design computing at University of sydney

This degree was a smorgasbord of interaction design, human-centred computing, human-computer interaction, creative programming, and random photography electives that I snuck in.

Certifications

2024
Soon: Anthropology and environmental justice: law, policy and activism from Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI)

Starting next year.

2024
Hannah arendt's the human condition. from Brooklyn Institute for Social Research

4 week course on Arendtian ethics and political ideas. . My favourite was "natality" for its application to design futuring.

2022
Using theory in research: applying social and cultural frameworks from Ethnography Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC)

6 week course.

2021
Designing ethnofutures research projects from Ethnography Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC)

Learned how to design future-thinking studies, in further time horizons, to create strategic foresight. Taught by The Institute For The Future (IFTF) at EPIC.

2021
Using analogs to research the unknown from Ethnography Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC)

Learned how to design a study for an environment or site I cannot reach -- outer space, under water, etc -- through analogous research.

Contact