The Heart of My Work
My practice lives at the intersection of care, design, and innovation; pioneering animal-centered design, creating tools for mindful human–canine collaboration, and reimagining maternal autonomy. These threads are bound by a single purpose: building futures where all beings thrive.
The Pilars of My Practice
My work spans three interconnected domains, each informing the others and together forming the ecosystem through which I explore care, creativity, and systemic change.
Animal Centered Design
Designing for & with animals to shape products, systems, & futures that honor multispecies needs.
Autonomous Motherhood
Reimagining new family models, maternal autonomy, & care - beginning with my own journey.
Publications
Strategic Design & Education
Building ventures, methodologies & facilitating connections that merge ethics, creativity, and innovation for lasting impact.
Research is at the core of my practice. My work appears in journals, conference proceedings, and design platforms exploring the intersections of design, ethics, and multispecies relationships. These papers reflect my commitment to blending rigorous inquiry with real-world impact.
My Path
I trained as an industrial designer, building a foundation in form, function, and manufacturing processes. Early in my career, I specialized in color, finish, and materials (CFM), exploring how tactile and visual qualities influence both user experience and brand identity. This work deepened my interest in human-centered design — creating products and services grounded in empathy, usability, and real-world contexts.
As my practice evolved across Latin America, the United States, and Europe, I began to integrate systems thinking, innovation strategies, business design and ethics into my approach. Along the way, I asked a radical question: What if animals were not only the users of designed systems, but active participants in creating them?
That question became the foundation of my doctoral research in Animal–Computer Interaction and my pioneering work in animal-centered design. I founded pH-auna to bring these ideas into practice, creating multispecies solutions for products, services, and environments. Later, I developed Pomodogo, a method that integrates mindfulness and canine health to improve human–animal well-being. With Universo Marea, I turned my lens toward maternal autonomy, supporting women who choose solo motherhood with freedom and responsibility.
These ventures are not separate paths, but parts of the same ecosystem — connected by an ethics of care, a commitment to design as a tool for transformation, and the belief that all beings deserve futures in which they can thrive.
Timeline
Third Culture Kid Beginnings
I was born in Bogotá, raised between Colombia and the U.S., and grew up navigating multiple cultures, languages, and ways of seeing the world. From a young age, I learned to adapt, translate, and listen deeply - skills that now shape how I work across disciplines, species, and systems.
As a third culture kid, I’ve always existed in the in-between. That perspective has become one of my greatest assets: it allows me to question assumptions, connect across difference, and design with nuance and empathy—whether I’m working with global teams, non-verbal users, or emerging family models.
Industrial Design Foundations
I hold a BFA in Industrial Design from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, where I first explored how objects and systems shape human behavior. I later earned an MFA in Product Design from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where I deepened my focus on the intersection of form, function, and user insight.
My first role was with Steelcase, where I worked on future-of-work concepts that merged spatial design with behavioral research. This foundation gave me fluency in traditional methodologies; skills I now reimagine through a multispecies, care-centered lens.
From Product to Purpose - Human Centered Design
Over time, I found myself less drawn to making things, and more to understanding why we make them. At Whirlpool, I worked in the CMF (Color, Materials, and Finishes) lab, studying how design choices subtly shape daily life both in the US and Europe.
Later, at Chamberlain, I entered a space where design wasn’t second nature. I had to become an advocate - explaining my value, teaching human-centered design, and helping teams shift their mindset. These experiences sharpened both my research practice and my resilience in corporate contexts.
Service Dog Training & Embodied Communication
My journey into animal-centered design began not with theory, but with lived experience at Bergin College of Canine Studies. I chose to start with service dogs because of the deep, interdependent bond they share with their human partners—trusting your life to an “animal” is one of the most profound relationships we can witness.
I wanted to understand how animals perceive, learn, and respond. What I discovered was transformative: everything we feel travels down the leash. Dogs don’t respond to what we say, but to what we embody—our tension, presence, and intention. This work taught me to observe without judgment, to become more consistent, and to take full responsibility for the signals I give off. It was the beginning of designing beyond language.
Venture Building & Business Fluency
As I explored animal-centered design, I realized the biggest barrier wasn’t creativity—it was funding. I needed to understand how ideas turn into viable businesses. That’s what brought me back to Colombia and to Polymath Ventures, where I helped build four companies from scratch.
I think of it as my on-the-job MBA. I learned startup design, business modeling, and how to balance vision with constraints. I also began to understand myself better—realizing that while I’d always seen myself as rational, my creative rhythms and emotional depth were just as central to how I work.
Pioneering Animal Centered Design
With new awareness from the training world, I wanted to take things further—beyond practice, into systems. I began asking: What if animals were not just users, but participants in design?
Driven by persistence and serendipity, I followed every thread—asking questions, knocking on doors, and exploring possibilities—until I found my way to a PhD program in Animal-Computer Interaction. A PhD was never part of my plan, but it became the perfect place to test a radical hypothesis: that we can design with animals, not just for them.
There, I developed a button interface for service dogs to request human help—bringing together technology, empathy, and behavioral science. That work laid the foundation for animal-centered design as a methodology: one that challenges human dominance in design and opens space for true interspecies collaboration.
Solo Motherhood & the Ethics of Care
Becoming a solo mother by choice changed everything. It made me even more aware of time, energy, and the invisible labor that holds life together.
It also revealed profound overlaps between working with animals and raising children—both require tuning into non-verbal cues, consistency, and presence. That’s part of why I co-founded Universo Marea, a space for reimagining autonomous motherhood in Latin America.
For me, care isn’t a separate topic—it’s the heart of my design philosophy and the future I want to help build.
The Intersection I Now Lead
Today, I lead a practice that lives at the intersection of animal-centered design, technology, ethics, and care. Through pH-auna, Pomodogo, and Universo Marea, I’m building an ecosystem that asks bigger questions about how we relate—to each other, to animals, and to the systems we create.
I believe I’m one of the only people in the world working across this particular convergence. It’s not always easy to define—but it’s where I know I’m meant to be.
My work invites others to expand who we design for, and what kinds of futures we’re capable of imagining.
Personal Manifesto
Living, Designing, and Mothering with Purpose Across Species and Systems
I believe care is a design principle.
That how we treat animals, children, and one another reveals the future we are building - whether or not we say it out loud.
I live and work at the intersection of design, ethics, and empathy, where purpose is not a buzzword but a blueprint. Whether it’s building multispecies technologies or reimagining family structures, I believe reciprocity, reflection, and responsibility must guide the systems we create.
I mother, I design, I learn—with intention.
I honor autonomy not as independence, but as the freedom to choose with awareness.
I value vulnerability, because truth-telling opens more doors than perfection ever will.
I practice authenticity, even when it’s messy, especially when it’s hard.
I hold space for community, where wisdom flows in every direction and support is a shared act of power.
And I work through the lens of impartial curiosity, because real innovation is listening before leading.
I believe that empathy is a radical tool, that education starts before language, and that we are always communicating—even when we think we’re not.
This is true with dogs. With children. With systems.
The thread running through it all is active reflection—a constant practice of asking:
Who are we designing for?
Who is not in the room?
And how can we widen the circle of care?
This is not just my work.
It is my way of being.