Meaghan Dee
Associate Professor
Virginia Tech
Design research has historically marginalized work connected to motherhood, reproductive health, and the lived experiences of womb-bearing and caregiving bodies, due in part to cultural stigma, institutional disinterest, and limited venues for scholarly dissemination. Yet these issues are central to human experience and deserve academic attention, especially within a field centered on systems, communication, and care.
This presentation introduces m(other)ing, a research and curatorial initiative that explores the potential of design to foreground reproductive experiences—from infertility and pregnancy to transgender and non-binary parenting, and the choice to live childfree. Motivated by the growing urgency of these topics,—this work advocates for new frameworks within design scholarship that validate personal, embodied, and politically entangled perspectives.
We will share curatorial outcomes from two exhibitions at Virginia Tech and James Madison University, including posters, zines, digital platforms, and speculative systems submitted by designers responding to reproductive justice and parenting. Through this body of work, we ask: How can design research expand to include projects that emerge from personal reproductive narratives? What methodologies and systems are needed to share and document this work ethically and in a care-centered way?
By positioning m(other)ing as both a scholarly platform and community-building effort, this presentation argues for expanding the scope of what counts as design research. We aim to spark dialogue on how design can bear witness to, and intervene in, the most intimate and contested aspects of contemporary life, and recognize designers and researchers as their whole selves.
This design research is presented at Design Incubation Colloquium 12.2: Annual CAA Conference 2026 (In-person only) on Thursday, February 19, 2026.