Design Research Theory & Methodology
Curious how the training you are receiving at Stanford could connect to real problems in Latin America?
This is your first step.
This is a ten-week seminar for graduate students across engineering, design and education who want their work to reach beyond regional boundaries. You'll pair with a graduate student in Mérida, Yucatán, learn to analyze and compare two ecosystems through a different lens before trying to build anything, and leave with a problem you and your partner have framed together and could actually act on.
This participatory graduate seminar examines how STEM talent, networks, resources, institutions, and social norms influence innovation ecosystems, with a focus on Latin America. Students analyze ecosystem dynamics and challenges related to infrastructure, education, climate, sustainability, and other regionally relevant issues. Working in international pairs with peers from a partner institution in Mexico, students will develop skills in contextual inquiry, ecosystem mapping, design inquiry, and reflective practice, and produce a joint ecosystem analysis and problem framing for a challenge of mutual interest.
Identity and assumptions
Articulate your own identity and how it shapes your design assumptions, and compare what innovation and design mean in two very different regional contexts.
Ecosystem and context
Map your own network, resources and institutions, then identify a context-specific challenge in your partner's region and argue why it matters locally.
Collaboration that travels
Work productively across language, time zone and discipline, and communicate intent clearly to a peer working in a different context.
You will leave with:
A robust analysis of a real problem relevant to the region, ready to act on after the course, with support from the teaching team if you want it.
A collaborator in the region: a potential co-founder, a working partner, or a friend.
A way of analyzing problems and ecosystems using design frameworks.
A place in the first cohort of a bridge between Silicon Valley and Yucatán.
- Weeks 1–2Trust building
Know your partner
- Weeks 3–5Two contexts, one question
Map the ecosystems
- Weeks 6–9Team collaboration
Frame a shared challenge
- Week 10Individual reflection
See what changed
Extra · Oct 29 (TBD) — Cross-ecosystem connection event: guest speakers and informal discussion with stakeholders and ecosystem actors from both regions. No class Nov 24–28 (Thanksgiving).
Ade Mabogunje, Ph.D.
Sr. Research Engineer at the Center for Design Research
Jesica Gonzalez Robles
Associate Researcher at the Center for Design Research
Lízbeth M. Zumárraga Ávila
Head of the Innovation Center
Built through COIL — Collaborative Online International Learning — and the PIC-Americas program.
The Program for the Internationalization of the Curriculum for the Americas supports higher education institutions across the hemisphere in building human capital, using COIL to prepare current and future generations to tackle complex political, economic, environmental and social challenges. This seminar is a living instance of it.
Small and participatory by design: twenty students, ten from Stanford and ten from Mérida, with lots of one-on-one work.
Each group meets in person, while collaboration between classrooms occurs virtually.
Join Us
First class is Tuesday, September 22nd, 4:30 PM – 6:20 PM (California), Building 550, Room 126. Open to Stanford graduate students across engineering, design and education.
Register now on the Navigate Enrollment portalQuestions? Please reach out to Jesica Gonzalez at jesgonz@stanford.edu.