Ximena Lainfiesta

Ximena Lainfiesta is a PhD researcher in the Interdisciplinary Media and Design at Northeastern University’s College of Arts, Media & Design (CAMD), where she works within the GhostLab under the supervision of Dr. Casper Harteveld. Her work sits at the intersection of women’s health, communication, and technology, examining how health technologies can be designed to reflect the complexity of women’s lived health experiences across different life stages. She approaches this from a bottom-up perspective, centering the voices, needs, and knowledge of women themselves.

Grounded in over 14 years of experience as an audiovisual journalist and communicator for development, Ximena bridges rigorous research with real-world impact. Her work has spanned leading COVID-19 health communication campaigns that reached over 2 million Guatemalans, building STEM education programs for young changemakers, and developing domestic violence response curricula for medical professionals across five European countries.

Her academic formation spans four master’s degrees across three continents: Cultural and Creative Industries (Taipei National University of the Arts, Taiwan), Digital Communication Leadership (Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Austria), International Development with a focus on ICT4D (Wageningen University and Research, Netherlands), and a specialization in NeuroLearning (Universidad Rafael Landivar, Guatemala). She is the recipient of the 2024 Unilever Research Prize and two National Innovation Awards from SENACYT, Guatemala’s National Secretariat for Science and Technology.

Beyond her research, Ximena serves as Vice President of the Board of FUNDEGUA (Fundación Desarrolla Guatemala) and is an active member of the McCain Institute’s McCain Global Leaders program, the Scientific and Professional Diaspora of Guatemalans Worldwide, and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD).