Cindy Regalado

My passion is kite-mapping. I also lead a double life.

By day I am a PhD candidate in the Extreme Citizen Science research group, ExCiteS, with Prof Muki Haklay at University College London Engineering and a researcher for the EU FP7 project “Citizen Cyberlab: Technology Enhanced Creative Learning in the field of Citizen Cyberscience”. In our approach the public is engaged at every step of the research project process - from problem definition and data collection, to analysis and choosing how the results will be used. My interest is in Do-It-Yourself practices forresearch initiated and led by the public, specifically learning-by-doing andgrassroots collaborative innovation.

By night I work with members of the public as a community organiser forthe not-for-profit Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science promoting inexpensive and accessible techniques thatsupport and build people’s capacity to act as civic agents addressing issues ofsocial and environmental justice. I also work with Citizens without Borders, a London-based group that creates physical, intellectual, and emotional spaces to build civic capacity - knowledge, skills, and courage - to tackle community issues, and build collaborative partnerships. We do this through activities that fuse thearts and sciences into the transactions of everyday life combining different experiential learning techniquessuch as rapid prototyping and improvisation theatre.

All of my work (with the public, at UCL, and the EU project) converges with the goal of creating spaces as opportunities (communicatively, physically, emotionally, intellectually, digitally) that incite reflection, exploration, and challenging ourselves. I do this by nurturing the playspaces of civic sci