Research Interest:
Design, HCI, RtD, Labor Design, Social Justice and Sustainability
Contact:
shuhao.ma@tecnico.ulisboa.pt
Hi, I am Shuhao, a PhD candidate in Digital Media (expected in Sep/Oct 2025) at the Interactive Technologies Institute, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa (Ulisboa), Portugal, and an affiliated PhD student at CMU/HCII within the scope of CMU Portugal. My PhD research examines the evolving relationship between design activities and labor. On one hand, I investigate the gig economy and platform work through ethnographic methods, aiming to identify, interpret, and critically discuss the central role of workers and labor within design processes. On the other hand, I explore how design strategies can improve the lived experiences of marginalized working communities, as well as how designers navigate corporate environments to advocate for worker justice. I am an interdisciplinary design researcher who develops flexible design approaches to pragmatically navigate the power dynamics that designers encounter within real-world organizational settings while addressing issues of social justice and sustainability.
I am currently supervised by Prof. Nuno Jardim Nunes (Ulisboa) and co-supervised by Prof. John Zimmerman (CMU) and Prof. Valentina Nisi (Ulisboa). My dissertation committee includes Prof. Paul Hekkert (TU Delft), Prof. Min Kyung Lee (UT Austin), and Prof. Ana Viseu (NOVA). Prior to my PhD, I was a service and interaction designer with a master’s degree in design from Tongji University. I hold a keen interest in sustainability and have previously engaged in projects related to sustainability and digital social innovation, collaborating with Prof. Francesca Valsecchi (Tongji Ecology and Cultures Innovation Lab).
Activities
- ⏳ 18 October 2025 – Attending CSCW 2025 (Bergen, Norway). Presenting our paper on Speculating Migrant Worlds on behalf of all co-authors.
- 5–9 July 2025 – Attended DIS 2025 (Madeira, Portugal). Serving as Zine Chair and chairing the session Designing for Specific User Groups.
- 26 April–1 May 2025 – Attended CHI 2025 (Yokohama, Japan). Presented a paper on Speculative Job Design in the session Workplace Interactions and Wellbeing.
- October 2024 – Visiting the HCI Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, USA), and collaborating with John Zimmerman.
- 1–5 July 2024 – Attended DIS 2024 (Copenhagen, Denmark). Presented a paper on Role of Platform Designers in Workr Issues in the session Design Politics and Ethics.
- 1 July 2024 – Participated in the DIS 2024 Doctoral Consortium, sharing my PhD project on worker-centered design.
- 9–13 October 2023 – Attended IASDR 2023 (Milan, Italy). Presented a paper on Design and Labor in the session Theoretical Positions and Explorations.
- 10–14 July 2023 – Attended DIS 2023 (Pittsburgh, USA). Presented a paper on gig worker–centered design opportunities in the session Worker-Centered Design and Resistance.
- 25 June – 3 July 2022 – Attended DRS 2022 (Bilbao, Spain), and participated in the PhD event.
Selected Publications
Valentina Nisi, Paulo Bala, Vanessa Cesário, Shuhao Ma, and Nuno Jardim Nunes. 2025. Speculating Migrant Possible Worlds through Magic Machines. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 9, 7, Article CSCW324 (November 2025).
DOI | MEMEX (EU H2020)
Shuhao Ma, Zhiming Liu, Valentina Nisi, Sarah E Fox, and Nuno Jardim Nunes. 2025. Speculative Job Design: Probing Alternative Opportunities for Gig Workers in an Automated Future. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’25), April 26-May 1, 2025, Yokohama, Japan. ACM.
DOI | CMU Portugal
Shuhao Ma. 2024. Advancing HCI and Design Methods to Empower Gig Workers. In Companion Publication of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’24 Companion). ACM.
DOI | CMU Portugal
Shuhao Ma, John Zimmerman, Sarah Fox, Valentina Nisi, and Nuno Jardim Nunes. 2024. “My Sense of Morality Leads to My Suffering, Battling, and Arguing”: The Role of Platform Designers in (Un)Deciding Gig Worker Issues. In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (Copenhagen, DK) (DIS ’24). ACM.
DOI | CMU Portugal
Shuhao Ma, Paulo Bala, Valentina Nisi, John Zimmerman, and Nuno Jardim Nunes. 2023. Uncovering Gig Worker-Centered Design Opportunities in Food Delivery Work. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) (DIS ’23). ACM.
DOI | CMU Portugal
Shuhao Ma, Valentina Nisi, John Zimmerman, and Nuno Jardim Nunes. 2023. Mapping the Research Landscape of the Gig Work for Design on Labour Research. In Proceedings of IASDR 2023: Life-changing Design (Milan, Italy) (IASDR ’23). Design Research Society.
DOI | CMU Portugal
Cesário, Vanessa, Paulo Bala, Shuhao Ma, and Valentina Nisi. 2023. Fostering social inclusion: empathic approaches for Migrant-Centred Design. In Proceedings of IASDR 2023: Life-changing Design (Milan, Italy) (IASDR ’23). Design Research Society.
DOI | MEMEX (EU H2020)
Valentina Nisi, Catia Prandi, Shuhao Ma, Marta Ferreira, Hugo Nicolau, Augusto Esteves, and Nuno Nunes. 2023. The design of Tecnico GO!: catering for students’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemics. Multimedia Tools and Applications.
DOI | MARE (Portugal Funding)
Shuhao Ma, Valentina Nisi, Augusto Esteves, Catia Prandi, Hugo Nicolau, Gianni Tumedei, Joao Nogueira, Francesco Boschi, and Nuno Nunes. 2021. Crowdsensing-enabled service design for floating students during the covid-19 pandemic. In Congress of the International Association of Societies of Design Research. Springer Nature Singapore.
DOI | MARE (Portugal Funding)
Research Experience
2020 – Now, Research Assistant, Interactive Technologies Institute, LARSyS, Tecnico, Lisbon, Portugal
2024 – 2025, Visiting PhD Scholar, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, CMU, USA
2016 – 2019, Research Assistant, Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Lab, Tongji University, Shanghai, China (now Ecology and Cultures Innovation Lab)
2018 – 2019, Visiting Student in Interaction Design, University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria
Academic Service
Program Committee
DIS Zine Chair: 2025
CHI LBW Associate Chair: 2025
CSCW Associate Chair: 2025 (October Cycle)
CSCW Associate Chair: 2025 (July Cycle)
Reviewer
*Special Recognition for Outstanding Reviews
CHI: 2024*, 2025**
DIS: 2024*, 2025***
CSCW: 2024, 2025
IASDR: 2021, 2023
CHI Italy: 2025
The Journal of Collaborative Computing and Work Practices: 2025
Teaching Experience
2021 Spring, Teaching Assistant, Environmental Ethics (BA Course with CIEE Shanghai, Pennsylvania State University and Rutgers University)
2021 Spring, Teaching Assistant, Sustainability and Anthropocene (BA Course with CIEE Shanghai, Pennsylvania State University)
2020 Fall, Teaching Assistant, Sustainability and Anthropocene (BA Course with CIEE Shanghai, Babson College and Syracuse University)
2019 Fall, Teaching Assistant, Data Visualization (MA Course with Tongji University)
Awards
2021, CMU Portugal Affiliated Ph.D. Scholarship (Portugal)
2018, OeAD Ernst Mach Grant for studying at an Austrian university of applied sciences (Austria)
Industry Experiences
2018, Interaction Designer Intern, WeChat Group – Tencent, Guangzhou, China
2017 – 2018, UX Product Manager Intern, PinAn Tech, Shanghai, China
Education
2021-2025, PhD in Digital Media, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Portugal
2016-2019, MA in Design, College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
2012-2016, BE in Industrial Design, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China