About

Peter Scupelli is an Associate Professor of Design and the director of the Learning Environments Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. His current research focuses on learning environments and design futures. He is also a co-founder of the Global Design Futures Network (GDFN). Peter teaches both undergraduate and doctoral-level courses, including Environments Studio I: Form and Context, Futures, and Design Futures. His teaching and research emphasize aligning short-term design actions with long-term vision goals and embedding values into design processes, with particular attention to Transition Design. In courses like Design Futures, students learn to combine Design Thinking with Futures Thinking to address both immediate and future challenges, while in Design for Zero-Carbon Lifestyles, he explores sustainable living and organizational practices. His training links architecture, interaction design, and human-computer interaction research.

Research topics

• Cognitive psychology
• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Sociology
• Medicine
• Developmental psychology
• Audiology
• Economics
• Financial economics
• Mathematics education
• Multimedia

Selected publications

• Design Futures Education in HCI

  2025-01-14

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  We live in dynamic times. Human-Computer Interaction practitioners engage with rapid technological change. Yet, so much else in the world around us is also changing. First, consider the ongoing social, economic, environmental, and political changes that shape the context where organizations, practitioners, and educators operate. Second, think of how the unfolding climate disaster is shifting where and how people live. Third, envision the need for a rapid transition to zero-carbon lifestyles by 2050. How might designers operate in such rapidly changing realities? This chapter describes how designers can shift from a destructive design paradigm that “defutures” the world and takes away our collective futures to a constructive design paradigm called “design futuring” that gives us a collective future. The focus of this chapter is seven Futures methods helpful to align short-term design action with long-term sustainability vision goals: (a) explore drivers of change, (b) critique images of futures, (c) design for alternative futures, (d) deepen understandings of Futures with CLA, (e) mapping pathways linking past, present, and futures, (f) exploring internal and external futures, and (g) structuring Design Futures experiences.

  PublisherDOI

• The Future of Futures Thinking in Design Education

  Virtual Community of Pathological Anatomy (University of Castilla La Mancha) · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This special issue stimulates the conversation between futures studies and design education. Discussions started at the International Conference on Design Futures in 2020 and continue today. Articles and essays in this issue examine future thinking in design education, present different approaches to teaching futures literacy, and discuss ways to advance futures literacy in design practice. Our objective is to transform design education to focus on long-term issues rather than just short-term ones, highlighting futures literacy in shaping design abilities to deal with uncertain futures.

  PublisherDOI

• Design Futures Pedagogy: Does the type of exercise, year of study, order, and number of exercises matter?

  2025-09-22

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Teaching design for long-term, societal-level sustainability requires design students to learn new design methods that combine Futures Thinking with Design Thinking. This paper explores three questions: (a) how to teach Futures Thinking methods; (b) when to incorporate Futures Thinking into the undergraduate curriculum; and (c) how many exercises to assign to teach a futures method. In this paper, we focus on the Futures Thinking method called Causal Layered Analysis (CLA). Previous research has shown that a “Studio Project CLA” exercise is three times more effective than a “Personal Futures CLA” in helping students apply CLA to their design work. In this paper, undergraduate students in their first and third years did both exercises. We report on three studies. In Study 1, we replicated prior research using a larger dataset. Our results confirm that when performing a single exercise, the “Studio Project CLA” exercise is significantly more effective than the “Personal Futures CLA” exercise. In Study 2, we compared the performance of first-year and third-year design students on both exercises. We found that first-year students had more design insights on how they might apply CLA to design processes. In study 3, regarding the order and quantity of exercises, contrary to the maxim “more practice is better,” we found that “what one practices matters.” In other words, for first-year students, a single “Studio Project CLA” exercise provides more benefit than an additional “Personal Futures CLA” exercise. We posit that the observed transfer from “Futures Thinking” to “Design Thinking” may be explained by three theories from Learning Science literature: (a) concreteness and abstraction of the CLA exercises, (b) the layered aspects of CLA helped to emphasize structural similarities across contexts, (c) concreteness fading in the Design Studio exercise. This study examined the number of design insights; our future work will explore the types and quality of design insights.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Digital Futures in Human-Computer Interaction

  2025-01-14

  bookOpen accessSenior author

  The books explores the dialogue between digital transformation and futures thinking for alternative visions of HCI research. The book highlights significant trends and advancements in futures thinking related to HCI.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Teaching to transfer causal layered analysis from futures thinking to design thinking

  2023-10-05 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We live in an exponentially changing world. Design educators are challenged to teach new design methods to productively engage with society’s ongoing problems such as the Sustainable Development Goals, the unfolding climate disaster, zero-carbon lifestyles, nuclear disarmament, etc. Such societal-level problems require both short-term design action and strategic long-term vision goal alignments. How might design educators teach new design methods effectively and efficiently within already packed design education curriculums? In this paper, I describe a required design futures course that teaches an experimental form of design, called Dexign Futures, it merges design thinking with futures thinking. The often unstated goal of teaching new design methods is to enable students to transfer such knowledge to other design courses, and, ultimately, to their professional practice. The futures thinking method, Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) is the focus of this paper. Prior research on Dexign Futures, made clear that with a “Personal Futures CLA'' assignment, only 19.8% of design students could articulate how the Futures Thinking method CLA related to future design methods and practice. In this paper, I describe a new way to teach CLA called “Studio Project CLA”; it more than tripled the number of undergraduate design students (62%) who described applications of CLA to their design practice. I posit that transfer of knowledge mechanisms likely explain observed performance gains. I hypothesize key insights relevant for design educators to create design exercises for undergraduate design students that likely facilitate knowledge transfer from futures thinking methods into design practice.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Design Education for Hybrid Environments

  Interaction design & architecture(s)/ID&A Interaction design & architecture(s) · 2023-10-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Teaching Designers to Anticipate Future Challenges with Causal Layered Analysis

  [ ] With Design: Reinventing Design Modes · 2022-01-01 · 3 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Effect of Repeated Exposure to the Visual Environment on Young Children's Attention

  Cognitive Science · 2022 · 19 citations

  • Psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  • Cognitive psychology

  Prior research suggests that visual features of the classroom environment (e.g., charts and posters) are potential sources of distraction hindering children's ability to maintain attention to instructional activities and reducing learning gains in a laboratory classroom. However, prior research only examined short-term exposure to elements of classroom décor, and it remains unknown whether children habituate to the visual environment with repeated exposure. In study 1, we explored experimentally the possibility that children may habituate to the visual environment if the visual displays are static. We measured kindergarten children's patterns of attention allocation in a decorated classroom environment over a 2-week period and compared the percentage of time children spent off-task to a baseline condition in which the classroom environment was streamlined (i.e., charts, posters, and manipulatives were removed). The findings indicate that with more prolonged exposure to a static visual environment, partial habitation effects were observed: Attention to the environment declined at the end of the exposure period compared to the beginning of the study; however, the environment remained a significant source of off-task behavior even after 2 weeks of exposure. In study 2, we extend this work by conducting a longitudinal observation of six primary classrooms in which we measured children's patterns of attention allocation in real classrooms for 15 weeks to investigate whether increasing familiarity with the classroom décor would influence attention toward the visual environment. No evidence of habituation was observed in genuine classrooms in study 2. Potential implications for classroom design and future directions are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• Classroom Design and Children's Attention Allocation: Beyond the Laboratory and into the Classroom

  Mind Brain and Education · 2022 · 20 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Psychology

  Abstract Prior laboratory research suggests the visual environment can be a source of distraction for children, reducing attention to instructional tasks and learning outcomes. However, systematic research examining how the visual environment relates to attention in genuine classrooms is rare. In addition, it is unknown what specific aspects of the environment pose a challenge for attention regulation. This observational study aims to (1) provide a nuanced examination of specific elements of the classroom visual environment (e.g., visual noise, display quantity, color variability) by analyzing panoramic classroom photographs ( N = 58) and (2) investigate whether specific visual environment elements are related to children's rates of on‐task behavior. Results indicate on‐task behavior was lower in classrooms containing greater quantities of visual noise and color variability, and in classrooms with either relatively small or large amounts of displays (controlling for observation session, school type, student gender, grade‐level, and instructional format). Implications for creating more optimal visual learning environments are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• Here and There, Now and Then: Creativity, Design and Instruction for Hybrid Environments

  Creativity and Cognition · 2022-06-20 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Hybrid Environments – spaces where physical and digital elements are blended in-situ – have been growing and expanding over the past few decades. As these technologies become woven into our everyday lives, new challenges and opportunities emerge as they transform our experiences in our homes, workplaces, museums, and cities. Designing Hybrid Environments requires training in both the design of physical environments and interactive technologies. Cross-trained students in higher education need to be able to creatively respond and adapt to these emerging landscapes. Students must bridge fundamental knowledge in design, architecture, art, interactivity, and computation. This is a complex pedagogical practice. How are educators meeting this emergent need? The workshop’s primary goals are to (i) form a collective understanding of the current technological and pedagogical challenges to teaching the design and understanding of Hybrid Environments; (ii) bring together educators and practitioners interested in the future of Hybrid Environments, (iii) discuss creativity support tools as well as frameworks, methods, and approaches for teaching emerging technologies, (iv) form a multidisciplinary community to shape the future of pedagogical inquiry and implementation of Hybrid Environments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Paul Salvador Inventado

  California State University, Fullerton

  17 shared

• Neil T. Heffernan

  Worcester Polytechnic Institute

  8 shared

• Ray Jaeyung Yun

  7 shared

• Vivian Loftness

  Carnegie Mellon University

  6 shared

• Susan R. Fussell

  Cornell University

  6 shared

• Ryan S. Baker

  6 shared

• Sara Kiesler

  Carnegie Mellon University

  6 shared

• Azizan Aziz

  Universiti Teknologi MARA

  6 shared

Education

• PhD in Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Computer Interaction Institute

  Carnegie Mellon University

  2009

• M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Computer Interaction Institute

  Carnegie Mellon University

  2007

• M. Des. in Interaction Design, School of Design

  Carnegie Mellon University

  2002

Awards & honors

• Nierenberg Professor (2019-2022)