Andrea Botero Cabrera

Andrea Botero Cabrera is an Associate Professor at Aalto University's Department of Design, where she leads the INUSE research group focusing on designer-user relations in socio-technical change. She also serves as Adjunct Professor at Universidad de los Andes' Faculty of Architecture and Design in Bogotá, Colombia, and as Guest Professor at Aalborg University's Centre for Sustainable and Digital Transformation.

Education:

• Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Design, Universidad Nacional de Colombia
• Master of Arts in Product and Strategic Design, Aalto University
• Doctor of Arts in New Media, Aalto University

Her research explores participatory design at the intersection of science and technology studies, transformative creative practice, and social innovation. She investigates how collectives shape design spaces and create environments for relational, caring interactions across people, collectives, and environments.

Her funded projects include European Union initiatives, Finnish Research Council grants, and Aalto University seed funding. She teaches courses on design research, collaborative techniques, and doctoral thesis analysis while supervising MA and DA researchers continuously.

Her recent publications focus on participatory design methodologies, decolonization in design, feral mapping experiments, and wearable technologies for environmental entanglement. She co-founded the collective design research studio Suo&co and contributes to Finnish NGO Ninho ry and Colombian NGO Utopiabio regarding diversity and community development.