Ir. Tamara Verónica Pinos Cisneros MSc is a PhD candidate at the Digital Life and Play and Civic Media lectorates and a Instrument Developer at the Digital Society School, of Center for Applied Research Create-IT at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and is specialized in research on the use of Smart-toys in health.

Research

Tamara’s research focuses on the use of Smart-toys and playfulness to motivate children with Cerebral Palsy do hand therapy.

Motivation

As a computer engineer Tamara has been determined to study the benefits of technology in different fields. A few years ago, she had the opportunity to collaborate with a children’s hospital back in her home country Ecuador, from there the question of how technology can help children ignited her current research project: Toys4Health.

Current research projects

Tamara is currently working on understanding how behavior change techniques can be applied to smart-toys, this is a research project done in collaboration with trainees from the Digital Society School. In addition, Tamara is currently also working on the research project Toys4Therapy at home, where she aims to further understand current hand therapies for children with spastic hand and how they can be translated into the home environment.

Current teaching activities

The current teaching activities of Tamara include Prototyping, Tinkering and the use of technology for creative and sustainable applications.

Education

Tamara graduated in 2005 at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador on Computer Engineering. In 2015 she obtained her master in Science on Media Technology at the University of Leiden. She is currently pursuing a PhD in the use of Smart-Toys to motivate Children do Physical therapy at University of Twente, under supervision of Dr. ir. Gekke Ludden, Prof. dr. ir. Ben Krose (HvA, UvA) and Prof. dr. Ben Schouten (HvA, TU/e).

Previous activities

From 2014 until 2017 Tamara was a Creative Technologist and Coach at MediaLAB Amsterdam where she worked on different projects with multidisciplinary group of students.

From 2005 until 2011 Tamara worked as a software developer for banks and the Ecuadorian government. In 2008 she funded Advance Consulting, her own software company.