An expert in sustainability transitions, urban, policy and societal experimentation, Jonas has ample experience in transdisciplinary collaborations. He developed the UU Transdisciplinary Field Guide, helped explore CUCo’s TD activities and trained new spark cohorts. He is also a professional facilitator and has been developing approaches to deepen collaborative processes. Jonas is our ‘transformer’ and official whiteboard manager. He makes sure everyone’s ideas are welcome and taken seriously, is responsible for making sure we apply the idea of the project to ourselves and ensures that Unbox remains relevant for transdisciplinary collaborations. He is investigating the relationship between projectification and research imagination, building on Unbox as an approach to rekindle participants sense of what is possible. Together with ‘Foundation We Are’, Jonas will ensure that Unbox can be used as probe to further research imagination.
Jonas Torrens is a transdisciplinary researcher and teacher. He is an assistant professor at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, where he explores different approaches to enabling transformative change towards sustainability. He has been involved with CUCo since 2021, co-coordinating in the Unbox Project, teaching the Spark and TD competencies course. That experience has greatly expanded his ability to work collaboratively and imaginatively, so he now seeks to do the same for others.
Jillian has expertise in integrating different forms of knowledge. Her work focuses on understanding and developing transdisciplinary research, education, and collaborations. She is increasingly engaged with leading and participating in interdisciplinary teams. Jillian is our “Jill-of-all-trades” and key to integrating different forms of knowledge. She continues to explore how to develop collaborations with integrative potential. How do you create a spark with people who come from different epistemologies? What can you do to keep the spark alive? How do you balance the needs of the project and the people involved? She is keen to embed imaginative practices to unpack and repackage these challenges that help facilitate inter- and transdisciplinary team processes.
Jillian Student is a knowledge integrator and researcher on inter- and transdisciplinary research and learning at Wageningen Institute for Environment and Climate Research and the Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University and Research. Her research integrates different scientific disciplines, forms of knowledge, and approaches to explore human-environment interactions in the context of environmental change (e.g. environmental degradation, climate change, biodiversity loss). Gaming and simulations are some of the ways she co-creates understanding of complex systems, develops experiences of potential future trajectories, and unpacks future-looking decision-making (e.g. dependencies, differing capacities, uncertainties).
Dan has a background in design (BSc, PhD) and technology policy (Master’s), and expertise in imaginaries, futures, sustainability, creative methods, and research through design. Dan (formerly TU/e) is the ‘metaphor explorer’. He brings experience in both the UCo projects ‘Unbox’ and ‘Playing With The Trouble’ on developing playful methods for interdisciplinary collaboration , and designing creative participatory methods (e.g. ‘New Metaphors’) for materialising and sharing ideas and imagination. Dan has in 2025 become Director of the Institute for Sustainable Worlds at Norwich University of the Arts, which is enabling new contexts and further interdisciplinary and cross-cultural possibilities for Unbox.
Dan Lockton is Professor of Design & Imagination at Norwich University of the Arts, UK; he was formerly an Assistant/Associate Professor at TU Eindhoven. He is a designer/researcher working on tools for collaborative re-imagining in an age of crises and transitions, and is Director of the new Institute for Sustainable Worlds—an interdisciplinary initiative applying creative research methods to acts of collective imagination. Dan has worked actively with CUCo since 2021, on ‘Playing with the Trouble’ and ‘Unbox’. He founded the Imaginaries Lab, a studio in Utrecht; previous positions include Carnegie Mellon (US), and the Royal College of Art (UK). He has a PhD and BSc in Design from Brunel, University of London and a Master’s in Technology Policy from Cambridge.
Femke uses inspiration from humans to provide robots with a human-like sense of touch. She is experienced in human perception research, but also has her own maker-space in her lab, with 3D printers and soft robotic production facilities. As a human perception scientist turned roboticist, and an academic with experience in industry, Femke will serve as our ‘hands’ to access new disciplines and contexts. She is very engaged in collaborations with companies to make sure that her solutions will have impact in the real world, for instance through her recent NWO Demonstrator project. Additionally, she supervises multi-disciplinary BSc thesis group projects. Both her company collaborations and her involvement in multi-disciplinary education could serve as a testbed for the Unbox method.
As a human perception scientist turned roboticist, and an academic with experience in industry, Femke knows what it takes to work across disciplines and contexts. She uses inspiration from humans to provide robots with a human-like sense of touch and is very engaged in collaborations with companies to make sure that her solutions will have impact in the real world, for instance through her recent NWO Demonstrator project. Additionally, she supervises multi-disciplinary BSc thesis group projects. Both her company collaborations and her involvement in multi-disciplinary education could serve as a testbed for the Unbox method.
With an MSc in Psychology, a PhD in Computer Science and working experience in Design and Governance, Merijn is interdisciplinarity personified. As a ‘practitioner’ of inter and transdisciplinary research, Merijn keeps this project ‘down to earth’. Additionally, the ongoing inter- and transdisciplinary research collaborations such as the PLAYSAFE project and Social Design course serve as testbeds for the developed Unbox prototype.
Merijn Bruijnes is an assistant professor at Utrecht University School of Governance in the Netherlands. He is an interdisciplinary scholar who combines experience and knowledge from psychology, computer science and governance to study current societal technical challenges and pragmatically design solutions. Merijn is active in efforts towards good scientific practices such as leading the Open Science Foundation workgroup towards creating an Artificial Social Agent Evaluation Instrument. His interdisciplinary work has a wide audience with contributions to various international conferences from different scientific fields and publications in top-ranked journals such as Nature Scientific Report. His current research focuses on the responsible development and use of artificial intelligence by governmental organisations such as the police, a research line he calls ‘AI for good’.
Daniel has a background in Computer Science, a PhD in Industrial Design and works mainly within the domain of Healthcare. His focus is on the design of resilient healthcare technologies. He is also co-founder and CFO of Picoo, a TU/e startup on interactive outdoor play technology. Daniel works in an interdisciplinary context, integrating the disciplines technology, psychology, design and health. He will act as a ‘reflector’ helps grounding the project in CBL education and professional design practice.
Daniel is one of the founding board members of CUCo and has been involved in CUCo for years. Interdisciplinarity is central to his work in designing resilient healthcare technologies. Next to his academic work, he also co-founded TU/e startup Picoo, built a house and is in the process of raising his three daughters.
‘Foundation We Are’ started in 2018 as an 8-headed design collective, over the years it has grown into a cultural organisation focusing on transdisciplinary collaboration and social innovation. We Are initiates, hosts, researches and exhibits/presents collaborations between designers and societal organisations, the government, and the local community. They proudly call themselves the Institute for Unexpected Collaborations. Their 600 m2 of exhibition, event and community space at Strijp-S in Eindhoven, is a place where transdisciplinary dialogues and exhibitions take place on a regular basis, it is also a place for socially engaged professionals and designers to rent a workspace. Their mission is to foster transformative collaborations and practices that manifest a more just, fair and resilient society and planet.
‘Foundation We Are’ will be a key partner in designing the summer retreat. They will bring in other partners who have been exploring imaginative, transformative and collaborative approaches to research, with a particular emphasis on the creative sector.
Former members & contributors
The brilliance of Kuangyi was applied designing the pieces and style of UNBOX. Find our more here: https://xingkuangyi.com/