Abstract: The vaginal microbiome is a key determinant of reproductive and gynecological health, yet many fundamental questions remain unanswered. When and how is the vaginal microbiome first established—does colonization begin in utero, or only at birth? What defines a stable, healthy microbial composition, and how does it fluctuate across the menstrual cycle and with the use of hormonal contraceptives? This talk will present insights from population-based studies investigating the intricate relationship between the vaginal microbiome and women’s health. We will explore how microbial imbalances (dysbiosis) contribute to an increased risk of reproductive disorders and adverse pregnancy outcomes, emphasizing the need for a deeper understanding to inform future clinical strategies.
Ina Schuppe Koistinen is a dynamic and results-driven scientific leader with a passion for innovation, particularly in the areas of women’s health and the skin microbiome.
After 18 successful years in the pharmaceutical industry, she has returned to academic research at Karolinska Institutet, bringing a wealth of experience in both pre-clinical and clinical drug development.
Her career is characterized by a broad expertise in translational medicine, spanning CNS, respiratory, autoimmunity, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases. With a deep understanding of pharmacology, toxicology, and biomarker discovery and qualification, Ina has a proven track record of driving interdisciplinary projects that advance scientific knowledge and therapeutic development. In her current research, she studies the critical roles of the microbiome in women’s health, aiming to translate these insights into novel interventions and diagnostics. Recently, she co-founded a company focusing on microbiome-driven skin health solutions.
In addition to Ina’s scientific pursuits, she is an accomplished artist and the author of the popular science book Vulva: Facts, Myths, and Life-Changing Insights. Her artwork, often intersecting with my scientific interests, has been featured in books, scientific presentations, and publications, and is proudly displayed in research labs and private collections worldwide.
AymurAI project: feminist AI in Latin America
Date and time: 26 May 2025, 14:00-15:00 CEST Speaker: Ivana Feldfeber, DataGénero
Abstract: The AymurAI project is a pioneering initiative that applies feminist methodologies to artificial intelligence (AI) in Latin America. This project is being implemented in Argentina and Costa Rica. Developed by DataGénero, AymurAI uses AI to make gender-based violence visible by collecting, processing, and using data through an intersectional and decolonial lens. This talk will explore how AymurAI challenges dominant AI paradigms by centering open software, transparency, community participation, and ethical data practices. We will discuss its role in fostering open justice, supporting evidence-based policymaking, and ensuring AI tools are designed with and for the communities they impact. By highlighting key findings, challenges, and future directions, this session invites participants to rethink AI development from a feminist, Latin American perspective.
Ivana Feldfeber is the executive directress of DataGenero, specializing in the intersections of artificial intelligence, data, and gender. She is a professor at the University of Buenos Aires and has been an invited lecturer at various universities, including UNTREF, UNSAM, UNAM, and Udelar. With a background in feminist and decolonial methodologies, she works on developing ethical and inclusive approaches to AI and data governance.
Emily Tseng
Participation, Trauma, and Privacy in Studying Digital Safety
Date and time: Tuesday 27 May 2025, 14:00-15:00 CEST Speaker: Emily Tseng, Microsoft Research / University of Washington
Abstract: The digital safety problems of today and tomorrow ask a lot of our research infrastructures. As computing technologies become more social and more complex, so too do the vulnerabilities and exploits that attackers use to sow harm. We need to learn about technology’s role in harm to develop mitigations. But deep, empathetic, and nuanced research into these experiences asks survivors to repeatedly relive one of the worst moments of their lives; and asks researchers to repeatedly consider volumes and volumes of others’ pain and suffering. How do we learn about these experiences in ways that respect the dignity of harm survivors and the vicarious trauma of researchers — and provide the rigorous science we need to create positive real-world impact?
This talk will cover my past, present and future work exploring these questions in the contexts of tech-facilitated intimate partner violence, trauma-informed computing, participatory AI and AI red-teaming. I’ll conclude with future directions for allied research communities across computer science, HCI, and design, towards research infrastructures that help us safely ensure safety for us all.
Emily Tseng’s research examines how computing comes to mediate harm, how to intervene, and what it means to do so. Trained as a scientist-advocate for survivors of gender-based violence, she works across interpersonal, organizational, and societal levels of harm to build the sociotechnical infrastructures we need to make digital technology safer for everyone.
Her current research interests include psychological safety in generative AI and AI red-teaming, and building participatory LLMs with and for journalists.
Emily publishes at top-tier venues in human-computer interaction (ACM CHI, CSCW) and computer security and privacy (USENIX Security, Oakland). With her collaborators, she has earned several Best Paper distinctions and an Internet Defense Prize, third place. Currently a postdoctoral research scientist at Microsoft Research, she will soon join the faculty of the University of Washington, in Human-Centered Design and Engineering.
Post-growth and Feminist Tech
Date and time: Wednesday 28 May 2025, 14:00-15:00 CEST Speaker: Neha Kumar, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
This seminar will begin with an introduction to post-growth HCI, which has very much been shaped by a feminist tech orientation. It will then serve as an exploration into how a post-growth orientation might open up new ways of viewing and investigating feminist tech.
Neha Kumar is an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. She conducts research on responsible and sustainable human-centered computing, investigating infrastructures of care, to inform the design and maintenance of such infrastructures leveraging emerging technologies. Pursuing community-engaged research, she foregrounds worker-centered perspectives and community wellbeing in contexts surrounding care. Her work on planetary care bridges scholarship on sustainability and development in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Neha's research has received over a dozen awards and recognitions at premier HCI venues. She has served as President of ACM SIGCHI since 2021 and Chair of ACM’s SIG Governing Board since 2024. She earned her Ph.D. in Information Management Systems from UC Berkeley, Master’s in Computer Science and Education from Stanford University, and Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Applied Math from UC Berkeley.
Where social communication, ecological practice and grassroots meet: The Menstrual Health Landscape of Rural India
Date and Time: Fri 2025-05-30 14.00 - 15.00
Speaker: Lakshmi Murthy, President, Jatan Sansthan, India
Where:
room 4618
, floor 6, D-building (Lindstedsvägen 3 or 5, entrance oppositive Digital Futures), KTH main campus OR
Zoom
Please note the alternative location and zoom link for this seminar.
Abstract:
Rural menstruators in India face multiple challenges. Practices around menstruation, impact health, economics, society and environment, often making the management of menstruation unsustainable. This seminar will explore a number of issues:
- How does a young rural menstruator learn about menstruation?
- What are the various menstrual management methods, passed down generations?
- Why are menstrual management devices poorly maintained?
- What is the impact of a social norm around menstruation?
- What is the impact of silence and how does silence become a barrier to recommended good menstrual health?
- Will the involvement of men lead to better facilities for menstruators?
- How are some of these aspects to menstruation addressed by organisations and activist?
Lakshmi Murthy’s work is where design, social communication, ecological practice, and grassroots meet. Her pioneering work in the field of reproductive health communication and sustainable menstrual management, spans 35 years and has had a deep and broad impact in rural areas in Rajasthan and across India. She has developed many communication products for health especially for non-literate communities. Lakshmi is proud to be an activist. Her passion to break silence on women’s reproductive health issues has inspired many young people. She is the innovator of Uger Cloth Sanitary Pads. She is proud to keep all her work in the ‘Copy Left” space. Associated with an NGO in India, Jatan Sansthan since inception, she has led and continues to have an advisory role in multiple programmes of the organisation to include:
- Reproductive Health and Menstrual Health
- Uger Reusable Sanitary Cloth Pad Production
- Communication /Media Material
- Student Rural Immersion Programmes
- Supporting Design Internships and Degree Projects
Links:
1.
thebetterindia.com/417310/lakshmi-murthy-menstrual-health-sustainable-design-india/
2.
thehardcopy.co/why-design-needs-copyleft/
3.
feminisminindia.com/2017/05/19/journey-menstrual-hygiene-management-india/
4.
www.youthkiawaaz.com/2020/08/sheroes-women-at-the-forefront-of-indias-menstrual-fight/
5.
jatansansthan.org/reproductive-health-and-uger/
A Manifesto for Critical, Crip & Cyborg Futures
Date and time: Thursday 12 June 2025, 15:00-16:00 CEST Speaker: Laura Forlano, Northeastern University Title: A Manifesto for Critical, Crip & Cyborg Futures
Abstract: This presentation is about the ways in which new technologies of so-called “automation” – such as AI-driven medical devices — shape what it means to experience disability in an algorithmic era. Rather than mere users of technology, disabled people’s identities and subjectivities are shaped with every software update and change in the interfaces that they use to manage intimate processes in their bodies. In this talk, I will introduce several autoethnographic vignettes and present several examples of art and creative practice by Type 1 Diabetic artists/scholars before introducing a series of manifestos that illustrate a broader politics around technology as well as open new possibilities for transformation.
Laura Forlano, a Fulbright award-winning and National Science Foundation funded scholar, is a disabled writer, social scientist and design researcher. She is Professor in the departments of Art + Design and Communication Studies in the College of Arts, Media, and Design and Senior Fellow at The Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University.
Forlano’s research is focused on the aesthetics and politics at the intersection between design and emerging technologies. She has used participatory workshops, collaborative games, exhibitions, speculative videos, prototypes and performances to imagine alternative futures for living with data and computation. She is the author of Cyborg (with Danya Glabau, MIT Press 2024) and an editor of three books: Bauhaus Futures (MIT Press 2019), digitalSTS (Princeton University Press 2019) and From Social Butterfly to Engaged Citizen (MIT Press 2011). Forlano is also an Affiliated Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. She received her Ph.D. in communications from Columbia University.
