mdES THESIS AND COURSE WORK
THESIS.
Supervisor: Dr. Shital Desai, Advisor: Professor Melanie Baljko
Rupsha’s thesis is still in early development however her research aims to bridge the gap between design, healthcare management, and accessibility. Through a human-centered design approach, Rupsha aims to understand how daily rituals can be integrated into assistive prompting technologies for people with early-stage dementia. Rupsha will use the method of co-discovery (part of the co-design process) to work with caregivers and people with dementia and then use those insights to build a prototype that integrates daily rituals. Her research is supported by a SSHRC Research Grant. In the making part of her thesis, she is focused on understanding how interaction design and user interface design can be utilized to create interfaces and interactions in mixed reality.
critiques of design as a practice.
Course Director: Dr. Gabi Schaffzin
Rupsha also engaged in coursework that built her understanding of design from a critical perspective. For her final project, she wrote three mini essays on Design Education, the Rise of Biocapitalism, and Cultural Appropriation of Indian Textiles for the Arts and Crafts Movement in 1860. She compiled these essays into a zine called Regime Shift.
design and dementia.
Course Director: Dr. Brad Meisner
To support her thesis, Rupsha took courses in the Kinesiology and Health Department at York and in the Sociology Department to learn more about dementia from a health management point of view. In her Health and Kinesiology, she had the opportunity to present a lecture about Music and Dementia to her peers and introduce Design Research methods to scholars in a different discipline.
design futures.
Course Director: Dr. Wendy Wong
In her disciplinary studio design course, Rupsha explored conceptual design that empowered a dementia friendly future.
Her research creation was a concept of an augmented reality early prototype of an AR/AI walking companion named Sammy.