Research
My research is participatory (committed to deep and broad participation), action-oriented (committed to outcomes beyond knowledge production and accountability to social change and social movements), and critical (committed to reframing the problem through critical theory lenses). My practice and ethical commitments are informed by a number of research lineages from design research to action research, community-based research, as well as research justice frameworks such anti-oppressive research, feminist research, Indigenous research, and activist and militant research.
For some insight into my approach, I have spoken about lessening the research burden on vulnerable communities, trauma-informed research, and written about trauma responsiveness in research, the need for an ethic of care with research participants, the value of participatory methods in research, the importance of compensating research participants, the power of proverbial expression in research, working in a large field research team, and being a Muslim researcher.
Away From Home
Understanding youth experiences of institutional placements in foster care
I served as research lead on an exploratory research study by Think Of Us on the experiences of young people who had recently lived in institutional placements in foster care. We used “institutional placements” as an umbrella term for out-of-home, non-family, live-in foster care placements, including congregate care facilities and group homes; homes for pregnant and parenting teens; transitional and emergency shelters; and other out-of-home placements such as assessment centers. Through a combination of semi-structured interviews and cultural probes, the research focused on understanding youth’s overall experience in these placements; their perspectives on the physical environment; the staff they interact with; the relationships they had before, during, and after institutional placements; their educational attainment, punishment and discipline in those institutions; establishing a clear picture of the entire aging out process; their access to basic necessities and services; and their perception of the impact being in institutional placements has had on their identity, send of self, and beyond. The findings of this research were published in a book titled Away From Home: Youth Experiences of Institutional Placements in Foster Care, which was featured by the Child Welfare Information Gateway and Casey Family Programs, as well as cited by numerous news outlets (including the New York Times, The Washington Post, and NBC News) and in Professor Dorothy Roberts’ latest book, Torn Apart.
Project website: thinkof-us.org/awayfromhome
Organization: Think of Us
Year: 2021 - 2022
When It Rains, It Pours
Researching the sesame ecosystem in Myanmar
Proximity Designs teamed up with Studio D Radiodurans to dive into one of Myanmar’s most important crops: sesame. Despite the fact that sesame is the second largest staple crop grown in Myanmar, both in terms of acreage and its estimated 500,000 farmers, there was a dearth of data on sesame in Myanmar, with official government figures only counting around 12 percent of exports. As senior researcher on the team, I helped conduct foundational research examining the lives of smallholder farmers, processors, distributors, and exporters of sesame. To learn more, check out this behind-the-scenes account of our design research process in the field, or read the resulting book I co-authored, When It Rains, It Pours: Challenges and Opportunities for Sesame Farming in Myanmar.
Organizations: Studio D Radiodurans, Proximity Designs
Year: 2019
Aged Out
Understanding the experience for youth aging out of foster care
Bloom Works was approached by Think Of Us to conduct a research sprint with the aim of better understanding the transition experience for youth aging out of foster care, and identifying opportunities to improve the process. The research focused on: establishing a clear picture of the entire aging out process; understanding existing Independent Living Programs (ILP) and the ILP plan-making process; exploring the existing tapped and untapped relationships and connections that foster youth have, and their mental models around the people they have in their lives; unearthing how we can support youth to identify and activate support networks to help in their transition. As consultant, I helped: plan for the research sprint, including the participant recruiting and sampling strategies, informed consent protocols, and research tools; conduct in-field research and debrief sessions; facilitate workshops to align on the research scope and synthesize findings. The findings of this research were published in a book titled Aged Out: How We're Failing Youth Transitioning Out of Care and featured by Georgetown University's Beeck Center in an article titled “Getting the Most Out of Design Research,” and in the National Association of Counsel for Children's journal The Guardian.
Project website: thinkof-us.org/aged-out
Organizations: Bloom Works, Think of Us
Years: 2019 - 2020
VX2020
Improving the volunteer experience for electoral political tech
Volunteer Experience 2020 (VX2020) is an initiative in partnership with Higher Ground Labs to help high impact political technology providers optimize the user experience of their volunteer-facing tools to improve the accessibility and power of volunteer engagement in the 2020 cycle. As a user researcher, I worked with the team behind Empower, a product that helps organizers expand the electorate through relational organizing. We employed a “Sprint” model to quickly understand a complex program, service, or product inside an existing tech organization to surface challenges and develop targeted recommendations. I helped evaluate the volunteer experience of the Empower product from a usability heuristics point of view, interviewed Empower team members, observed product meetings and processes, reviewed internal training documents, and conducted user research and testing of the Empower product, in order to uncover insights around two main themes: the quality of the product itself, and the product design approach of the Empower team.
Organizations: Higher Ground Labs, Empower
Year: 2020
Sèvis Finansye Fonkoze
Assessing a microfinance institution’s customer experience in Haiti
GRID Impact was commissioned by Sèvis Finansye Fonkoze, Haiti’s largest microfinance institution, to assess its existing customer experience as well as product and service offerings. As lead designer, I helped, in both French and English: plan for in-field design research, including the participant recruiting and sampling protocols and data collection tools; conduct a desk review to look into Fonkoze’s existing marketing materials, product sheets, and other internal documents; conduct in-field research and debrief sessions; and facilitate workshops with the Fonkoze team to align on the research scope and present high level synthesis findings. The final output, a Product and Customer Experience Assessment Report, outlined the main findings from the research, presented opportunity areas and potential solution concepts, along with inspiration from other contexts to help guide Fonkoze’s work moving forward.
Organizations: GRID Impact, Fonkoze
Year: 2019
Healing Classrooms
Reevaluating tools, processes, and trainings for education in Lebanon
The Syrian conflict and ensuing instability in the region has caused the displacement of 1.5 million Syrians into Lebanon. In response to this crisis, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has been implementing its Healing Classrooms approach to create safe, supportive, predictable, and cooperative learning environments for refugees, and to teach components of reading, math, and social emotional learning by applying positive instructional and classroom management techniques. The IRC Education program in Lebanon has existing programmatic and data collection tools, processes, and trainings to support their work, including resources for classroom observation, social and emotional learning, and teacher professional development. I was brought in as a consultant to conduct evaluative research of these processes to reevaluate their usability for IRC teachers and field staff. To share interim findings for this project, I was invited to lead a workshop using human-centered design for New York University’s 3EA Education in Emergencies: Evidence for Action consortium in Istanbul.
Organization: International Rescue Committee
Years: 2018 - 2019
TurboVote
Understanding the first-time voter experience in the United States
Through a partnership with non-profit Democracy Works, I led a team of researchers and designers at the SAP Design & Co-Innovation Center to help address low turnout rates among America's young, first-time voters. We used a hybrid research approach that included exploratory, evaluative, and comparative research, to find key behavioral trends that influence whether young, first-time voters, in terms of what influences them, how they form opinions, what really drives them to take action, who they trust and listen to, and what technology they use, among other topics. This combination of research methods allowed our team to move beyond existing assumptions and develop a richer understanding of Democracy Works's problem space, and provide design recommendations to for the next iteration of their flagship product, TurboVote. This work received accolades at the 2017 Core77 Design Awards and the 2017 International Design Excellence Awards. To learn more, you can see an excerpt from our case study, “Re-Designing the First-Time Voter Experience,” read my three-part blog post series (“The Voting Process through a Behavioral Lens;” “Meeting Young Voters Where They Already Are: Social Media;” “The Experience of Voting for the First Time, and How to Make it Better”), or watch this video presenting the design research findings.
Organizations: SAP Design and Co-Innovation Center, Democracy Works
Year: 2016
Embracing Informality
Exploring the financial needs of migrant workers in China
Our team conducted a study to explore and share a deep understanding of the daily lives of China’s rural villagers, migrant workers, and ethnic minorities, and their use of informal financial services. As co-author, my particular focus was to build the case for a new remittance service that meets the untapped financial needs of migrant workers, while remaining feasible in China’s existing legal and business environment. To learn more, you can read the full publication titled Embracing Informality: Designing Financial Services for China’s Marginalized, or see my blog posts titled “Informalizing Financial Services” and "Bridging the Urban-Rural Corridor in China.”
Organizations: Institute of Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion, Reboot
Year: 2012
Safe Horizon
Understanding how to reach survivors of human trafficking in NYC
Safe Horizon’s Anti-Trafficking Program provides services to survivors of labor and sex trafficking. Our team explored how best to reach potential victims, who are often difficult to contact and may be hesitant to seek help. My role was to help conduct ethnographic research (in English and Spanish) and to develop prototypes in support of a new outreach strategy, focused on leveraging check cashing shops. Looking back, this project is an example of an engagement where the team, myself included, was not equipped to deal with the trauma that was bound to surface from our interviews, and nor were we trained to conduct research in a trauma-responsive way.
Organizations: Safe Horizon, Reboot
Year: 2012