Masako is a designer, researcher, and educator who explores how participatory and practice-based design can support more creative, ethical, and sustainable societies.
Her current research investigates co-creative approaches rooted in local cultures and everyday practices, focusing on the dynamics that emerge when people create together. Through workshops, theatre, games, interactive media, spatial design, and designed artefacts, she explores how collaborative making fosters reflection, transformation, and new forms of collective imagination.
She conducted practice-based research at Delft University of Technology (2016–2018), working with local communities and older adults using participatory design and Research through Design approaches. In 2018, she joined the Ubiquitous Computing Research Group at the University of Lugano, Switzerland, where she conducted participatory design research with citizens in the sharing economy context. Before entering academia, she spent over fifteen years at Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd., working on service design, UX research, UI design, and graphic design for new business development.
She holds a B.A. in Visual Communication Design from Musashino Art University in Tokyo and an MSc in Design for Interaction from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
