Marianela Ciolfi Felice

I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Interaction Design at KTH, where I work on data-enabled and body-centred technologies. My interests lie in the intersections between critical feminist computing, AI, and soma design, and in how we can design, deploy and evaluate technology and interventions to help people and organisations who fight against inequalities (I don't think that technology can ever be a solution to complex societal problems).

In the last 5 years, my research has been recognised with 7 Best Paper awards (top 1% of submissions) and 3 Honorable mention awards (top 5% of submissions) in ACM CHI and ACM DIS, top conferences in my field.

Previously, I worked at KTH as a postdoctoral researcher in the area of digital women's health. During that period I explored the design space of life transitions and experiences including menarche, menopause, and contraception, from a feminist Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) perspective. Before joining KTH, I completed my doctoral studies in Computer Science at Université Paris Saclay, France. My thesis concerned the design of interactive tools to support expert creative practice in graphic design and contemporary choreography.

I find a lot of joy in being an active member of the ACM SIGCHI Latin American community, which I helped creating.

Between 2019-2024 I co-organised the 'FFF seminars' where our research lab hosts 1-hour talks from a variety of speakers.

What am I up to now?

Besides working on several research projects and papers with my group and with international collaborators, I am a proud co-supervisor of three PhD students that explore topics in critical feminist computing.

My work with DataGénero NGO on AymurAI, a project that uses AI towards a feminist reform of justice in Latin America, is another source of passion.

In addition, I am the representative of the Human-Computer Interaction subject within the PhD Programme Committee for Mediated Communication at KTH, and I represent my department at the EECS school's JML work group ("Gender equality, diversity and equal conditions").

News

-The work of one of my PhD students won an Honorable Mention Award at the same conference! It will be open access soon.

-Our CHI 2025 paper on the AymurAI project won a Best Paper Award at ACM CHI 2025! :)

-Our new ACM CHI 2025 paper on the AymurAI project is now available! I will be presenting it late April in Japan.

Are you a Master student at KTH?
If you are interested in all things related to critical computing and feminism feel free to contact me via email about possibilities of thesis supervision or examination in my group. Please note that this only applies to students who are already doing their master's at KTH specifically, and about to conduct their degree project.

Are you thinking of applying to a Digital Futures postdoc position?

If you are eligible and interested in working with me in Sweden, contact me in advance to see if I'm in the capacity to support candidates for the call. If that's the case, then we will talk about your proposal and if we're in alignment, we can find together a matching co-supervisor.