Nikos Melachrinos

Designer and Social Scientist

Hi! I am a designer and a social scientist focused on using digital technology to improve people's wellbeing. During my time at the RCA I've worked across projects in the public and private sector exploring how technology can be a force of good, how do we connect the online with offline, and how to make digital services more human-centered. During my first-year, two important projects were working with Bounce Works to help young children and their families develop emotional resilience and with Bestival to improve access for the hard of hearing for their events. 

I spent my 2nd year collaborating with Alpha (a moonshot factory by Telefonica- https://www.alpha.company) whose mission is to bring together cutting-edge knowledge and research on human behavior with best-in-class machine learning and product design, to create products and services that will encourage behavior changes that will radically reduce the burden of chronic disease globally.

Overall, the approach to my practice is thinking a lot about design as aesthetics and design as science. I love working with the aesthetics of a product or an experience and connecting to all the human senses. At the same time, trained as a social scientist, I also enjoy the scientific aspect of design. A/B testing, user research, hypotheses, experiments, and data become an integral part of the same process. I really enjoy thinking about both aspects and combining them meaningfully. I feel that this is reflected in my work as I attempt to combine the scientific with the artistic, the objective with the subjective and the aesthetic with the practical.