Dr. Maliheh Ghajargar is a design researcher whose work examines human–environment–technology interactions. She investigates how AI, robots, and interactive media participate in people's relationships with landscapes and ecologies— and how these relationships can be made perceptible through tangible, embodied, and sonic interaction. Prior to joining WPI, she held Assistant Professor positions in Design Geography at UNC-CH, in Design and Engineering at Chapman University, an Associate Senior Lecturer position in Interaction Design at Malmö University, Sweden, and a postdoctoral researcher position at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands.

Employing interaction design alongside qualitative, creative, and self-reflexive methods, her research bridges technical making and critical inquiry, envisioning alternative futures in which technology supports rather than diminishes our entanglements with the living world.

She is currently working on a book manuscript under contract with Bloomsbury tentatively titled “Designing with Nature Data.” The book provides an account of biodiversity and environmental data usage in design and engineering processes, and it offers models and tactics for designing with nature data that is participatory, multispecies, and ecological.

Her research has been published in top-ranked journals and conference proceedings in the fields of design and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). She has organized several workshops at international venues and served as a program committee member and associate chair at several ACM (CHI, TEI, DIS) and IEEE (International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication) conferences.

She directs the Interaction Design Research Lab at WPI, where she is actively recruiting undergraduate and graduate students from a wide range of backgrounds to join research projects at the intersection of design, technology, and the ecological world. If this sounds like a good fit, reach out to her at mghajargar@wpi.edu.