Laia Turmo Vidal

Hello! I am Laia.

I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Interaction Design at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), working on body-centred technologies, soma design, and health.

I design, develop, and study technologies to support lived and sensitive experiences of health. My aim is to explore alternative ways of inhabiting and relating to our changing bodies, and expand how health is imagined and approached in technology design. My work foregrounds sensory experience, critical disability perspectives and feminist design approaches.

I mainly work with technologies that come close to the body or touch it, including soft robotics and haptics, shape-changing wearables, or closed-loop biofeedback devices. Through collaborations, I have also worked on VR applications for somatic experiences in extended reality.

Previously, I was a postdoc at KTH with a Digital Future’s Fellowship, where I explored soft haptics to support people living with musculoskeletal conditions. Before that, I did a postdoc at i_mBODY Lab at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain), where I designed and studied auditory and haptic technologies to change body perception. I hold a PhD and MSc in Human Computer Interaction (Uppsala University, Sweden) and a BSc in Multimedia Technologies (Polytechnic University of Catalunya, Spain).

Besides research, I enjoy drawing and photoembroidery, physical activity and spending time walking and foraging the forests and lakes of Sweden. You can get in contact with me through: