Maria Menendez-Blanco is interested in how technologies can enable, or hinder, democratic processes of participation. She investigates how public concerns can be represented on through digital platforms, interactive artifacts, and public events.
In 2020, she joined the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italy) as Assistant Professor. From this beautiful alpine region, she collaborates with colleagues and friends from around the world. She has worked on narratives, gender, and computing in FemTech.dk; on sustained participation, digital platforms, and issue formation at the ParticipaLab of MediaLab Prado; and on representing matters of concerns in spazioD.
For Ph.D. students in the Computer Science faculty, Maria teaches topics related to tech ethics and data work; and at the Communication Sciences and Culture program she teaches the foundations of Human-Computer Interaction with a focus on digital prototyping as a tool for communication. She supervises Ph.D. candidates and master’s as well as bachelor’s students.
