Luis is a Teaching Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Design and a Senior Teaching Consultant Fellow at the Eberly Center, where he works with graduate student instructors and postdoctoral fellows to implement evidence-based strategies to improve their teaching.
He is an Ecuadorian designer focused on exploring the role of design and designers in transdisciplinary processes to tackle complex, wicked problems. His work centers on fostering critical consciousness in non-expert designers to strengthen collaboration across diverse contexts. Driven by a passion for the dynamic interplay between theory and practice, he aims to challenge dominant perspectives and propose a design philosophy that amplifies people’s capability to positively transform their reality.
He has worked with the Ecuadorian Corporation for the Development of Research and Academia (CEDIA) and the German Cooperation Agency (GIZ), organizing two national open innovation initiatives focused on sustainable urban mobility. His experience spans transdisciplinary collaborations in public spaces, curriculum design, healthcare, and community engagement.
In 2021, he served as a Public Space Fellow for the Indianapolis Cultural Trail and participated in the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) through the Research Jam program. This program collaborates with community members, patients, care providers, and researchers, using people-centered design research to improve health services, research, and overall quality of life. In 2019, he was part of a multidisciplinary team that evaluated and proposed improvements for a new public bike-sharing system in Cuenca, Ecuador.
In 2017, alongside a multidisciplinary team of designers and engineers, he received the Matilde Hidalgo Award for Best Innovation of the Year. This award, presented by the President of Ecuador, is the highest honor in Ecuador’s education, innovation, and research fields.
As a Fulbright scholar, Luis studied an MFA focused on Design Research and Strategy from Indiana University, Indianapolis, and has a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Cuenca. While an undergraduate student, Luis was part of the university Honors Program, coordinated in collaboration with the Belgian University of Leuven, a multidisciplinary initiative that offered students dedicated training in scientific research approaches and methods.
Research interests include:
Pluriversal Futures for Design Education
Participatory design and co-production for social transformations
Latin American communities' response to systemic neglect from the state
Design Studies courses I teach:
Design Studies: Systems
Design Studies: Persuasion
Design Studies: Cultures
Research and Practice Networks I am part of: