Catalina Alzate (she/her) is a professor of graphic design in the College of Fine and Applied Arts. Catalina directs the Critical Anatomies Lab, conducting design research on health equity, with a focus on community well-being and emerging technologies. The lab proposes methodological tools, pedagogical approaches, tangible design outcomes and case studies in participatory research that enhance our understanding and practice of healing experiences and technology design, particularly in connection to social and transformative justice.
This research builds on the foundation that strong communities are indispensable to improving people’s health, and that technologies and services can support healing experiences in their relational and embodied capacities. The lab emphasizes the production of outcomes that directly benefit community-based healthcare organizations through design means like advocacy materials, system visualizations, analysis of emerging technologies and more.
The theoretical and methodological basis of this research span design, feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS), somatics, and medical anthropology.
In Summer 2025, Prof. Alzate became an IHSI affiliate and joined the Community Academic Scholars (CAS) Program, mentoring undergraduate scholars on two distinct projects – one with the Champaign Urbana Public Health district, exploring participatory body mapping and documenting the embodied experiences of home visitors and doulas, and another with Urbana Acupuncture that visualizes and documents the value of community and ritual in healing among community acupuncture patients.
Recently, she also joined IHSI’s Max Wallace and Dr. Celina Trujillo along with Prof. Wendy Rogers for the CAS project information session, where she discussed her experiences and insights as a new mentor with the program, including her work with the students and the program as a whole.
Max Wallace and Celina Trujillo, the CAS Program co-leads invited Prof. Alzate to share her insights with future mentors because of her wonderful work with the Commujnity-Academic Scholars program. Max, a visiting program coordinator with IHSI, was impressed with Prof. Alzate’s mentorship of her scholars.
“I think both Maya and Dhanvi's presentations were a testament to her mentorship expertise, having both delivered really amazing posters with supplemental materials that went above and beyond the scope of the program” Wallace remarked.
Celina Trujillo, research development manager for community-academic partnerships, agrees,
“Catalina is a great partner to IHSI and a strong advocate for the CAS Program,” Celina said. “She’s also a champion for equity and community well-being. She recently shared with me her project report on the body mapping work involving 2025 CAS Scholar Maya Westbrook. In addition to being visually stunning, it shows what becomes possible when we bring interdisciplinary approaches to community-based work—richer qualitative insights, actionable findings, and clear pathways for translation.”
Can you describe a goal you are currently pursuing?
Many projects in the lab are involved with mapping bodies and territories to generate alternative/critical anatomies of healthcare and technology ecosystems. Current projects include the development of visual materials that help communicate complex care infrastructures. We recently explored this by looking at how app-driven gig economy platforms for care work perpetuate caring as underpaid and precarious labor. We are now exploring the debt crisis by medical students in integrative medicine schools in the US.
On the expressive and participatory side, we are deploying a third iteration of participatory body mapping with care providers, and creating a feminist archive of medical technologies & gendered bodies.
How has the focus of your research changed or evolved since you first started in the field?
The incorporation of somatics and mind-body pedagogies into the research process has aided in the emergence of richness and extra depth of the research. Through this involvement we have developed and iteratively tested a pedagogical framework for body mapping processes that has led to incredibly insightful projects and powerful collaborations with healthcare organizations.
How is most of your research funded?
This research has been funded internally, and externally through the Engagement Scholarship Consortium.
What is something you want your colleagues to know about you or your research?
I envision the work in the lab to be expansively connected on campus with other researchers and community members that support its vision. The lab is thought of as an open space that welcomes curiosity and collaboration. There are ways to interact and get involved with this work. A lot of the design projects include tangible components, such as communication tools and artifacts that are worth physically interacting with. I welcome visits to our lab located in Noble Hall 217.
Another way of getting involved is by joining our reading group “Care, Code & Control”, which brings together academics (mostly from health related sciences and design) in conversation with healthcare practitioners/ providers around the theory and practice of embodiment, trauma-informed care and technology design. More information here.
Are there new research areas that you are interested in pursuing in the next 3 - 5 years?
In the next 3 to 5 years I will be further exploring body mapping in relation to the holistic effects of biotechnologies and big tech infrastructures, using bodies and territorial maps as strategies for diagnosing, understanding, and advocating for pressing healthcare needs at the community level.
As a research lab, we will continue to develop a research methodology that advances theoretical and practical scholarship, in parallel to the strengthening of relationships with organizations outside academia. I am also invested in advancing scholarship about feminist positionality and reflexivity in conducting research.
Bonus question: After your first year as an academic mentor in the Community-Academic Scholars program, do you have any insights from the program you would like to share?
The Community-Academic Scholars program was an excellent opportunity to accelerate my research by collaborating with undergraduate students who brought fresh ideas and perspectives from fields that intersect with design and health, such as information sciences, psychology and social work. Students shared with me how they felt supported by the program and I could see the results of that support in their confidence and ability to describe the research in the final community showcase. Overall, the program offered meaningful opportunities for growth for the students, the lab, and especially for the community partners we collaborated with.
IHSI affiliates demonstrate leadership and commitment to improving human health. The IHSI affiliate program is designed for those who wish to deepen their relationship with IHSI and contribute to its mission of catalyzing interdisciplinary health research that addresses personal, public, and planetary health challenges. Affiliates enjoy increased visibility and opportunities to engage with and benefit from IHSI staff, other affiliates, and networks, both across campus and with external partners, and to help shape health research, innovation, and translation.
The IHSI Affiliate Program is currently open by invitation only. To become an IHSI affiliate, please contact your collaborators at IHSI, or request an invitation by emailing healthinstitute@illinois.edu. Please visit the IHSI Affiliate page for more information.