The Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering welcomes Dr. Prashant Rajan for a special community lecture. UW students, faculty, and staff are welcome to attend.

Decentering solutionist design and research, centering ourselves

In this talk, I will share my journey and learnings as a researcher and educator working at the intersections of design, engineering, humanities, and the social sciences. I will interrogate HCDE’s vision for a just future and equitable technologies across the globe by asking what it means for design and engineering to be done not for, nor with, but by marginalized peoples. Drawing from my experiences working with grassroots communities, nonprofits, government, and businesses, I will first show how insights from reflexive engagement with ‘designed for’ communities can inform team- and community-based learning. Second, I will discuss how mindfulness-based approaches can help contribute to fostering student well being and academic success. Finally, I will examine my mistakes as a teacher of professional communication in light of my industry experiences. 

Prashant Rajan, Ph.D., has 13 years of experience teaching and conducting research on the relationship between design and use. His work at HubSpot led to key product enhancements by focusing on report customization, while at Microsoft Azure, he uncovered user behaviors that streamlined cloud migration and feature development. At Tableau, Prashant’s research helped secure funding for innovative AI analytics projects and streamlined market entry strategies, influencing product-user fit across customer segments. Previously, as an academic at Saint Louis University, Iowa State University, and Ohio University, Prashant collaborated with the National Informatics Center and the Government of Chhattisgarh, India, to justify and evaluate the delivery of smart card-based and biometrically authenticated food access for over 900,000 households.

Prashant has published 20 peer-reviewed papers, given more than 30 refereed presentations at national and international conferences, and presented seven invited research seminars and workshops at international research organizations and universities including: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Innovation Lab, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (USDA-ERS), the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and the South African Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation Centre of Excellence in Food Security (DST-NRF CoE-FS). Prashant holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Communication from Purdue University, an M.S. in Materials Science & Engineering from the University of Cincinnati, and a B. E. in Polymer Engineering from Savitribai Phule Pune University.