Jacob Sheahan, PhD


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Hi there, i’m a design researcher exploring the swampy lowlands of our ageing and technology futures

Call for Papers: Special Issue on "Connecting Older Adults to the Digital World" ︎ 

Post-doc: Enhancing Networks of Care
The University of Edinburgh
2023 - Present


This work focuses on supporting healthier and more resilient networks of care in later life by enhancing the practices, knowledge, and tools available to them. As collaborative design projects, we explore the role of community-led, service-enabled, and technology-driven networks of care.

Project: Enabling Care Networks Already Mobilised in Communities ︎

☞ Project: Support Caregivers within Care Networks ︎

Project: Improve Technology-supported Care Networks ︎

Project (2023): Care Futures: Generative AI Stories of Ageing ︎


Enabling Care Networks Already Mobilised in Communities
Advanced Care Research Centre
Ongoing


Drawing on the findings of the CareTree cultural probe, which captured instances and notions of care in the lives of older adults, we are currently running group workshops to unpack the findings and consider ways of supporting more resilient local care infrastructure.

Report (2023): CareTree Cultural Probe Study ︎

Presentation (2024): Eliciting Networks & Ecologies of Care in Later Life ︎

☞ Workshops: Early 2024


Support Caregivers within Care Networks
Advanced Care Research Centre
Ongoing


Responding to the strain on existing pathways to support informal carers, we are collaborating with carers to identify their priorities around support and potential alternative pathways to pilot.

☞ Briefing (2023): Lessons from Engaging Informal Carers ︎

Grant: Wellcome Trust iTPA Springboard Grant


Improving Technology-supported Care Networks
Design Informatics
Ongoing


As care technologies enable our practices of care, particularly passive forms that are convenient and seamless, we wonder how could the tacit frictions of care provide opportunities to negotiate consent, build trust & enhance care networks, re-imagining the role of technology.

Debate (2024): Navigating Mediated Kinship & Care Ageing-in-Place ︎

Presentation (2024): Tech Caregiving & Networks of Care ︎

Workshop: Designing with Friction - Inverting notions of frictionless technology






Care Futures: Generating Stories of Ageing, Care & Technology 
DCODE Training Network ︎
2023


As older adults face a future that is more complicated and unpredictable than ever, I supported several PhD candidates in crafting stories that explore our ageing futures as provocations around how technology provides care.

Zine (2023): Eight short stories of Ageing, Care and Tech ︎



For Submission - Failure and Repair in Fall Detection Systems for Older Adults: A Qualitative Review

Cardamone, E., Sheahan, J.

Engineering Studies
This qualitative review investigates failure and repair in fall detection systems through a qualitative analysis of 17 studies to engage a phenomenological approach to engineering studies. Walking away from quantitative assessments of failure through acceptance rates, ease of use, and false positives, we identify eight themes critical to reshaping the development and implementation of fall detection systems.


Forthcoming - Navigating Mediated Kinship & Care Ageing-in-Place

Sheahan, J.

Journal of Anthropology and Aging
Nearly three decades after Marilyn Strathern suggested the implications of innovation at birth, today, we are also grappling with technology's impact on later life. As assemblages of technologies have become essential to how and to whom we care, I support Marilyn’s assertation that today, we also struggle with a future seemingly trapped by present choice as techno-determinist dogma appears to bind our society. Beyond imaginaries of robotically assisted and real-time monitored ageing, I examine how these new forms of kinship can serve us in realising “desirable” futures with the depth and aspirations so many have for ageing-in-place.


2024 - Eliciting Network & Ecologies of Care in Later Life

Sheahan, J., Wilson, C., Pschetz, L., Dixon, B., Vines, J.

Design4Health Conference, Sheffield
While a large body of research has documented people’s experiences of care in later life, very little of this work has explored the complex networks and entanglements of care people experience in old age. This study draws inspiration from the expanding use of care concepts like ecologies and entanglements to unravel complex care relations, offering valuable insights for design considerations. Sent to 18 older adults across Scotland, the probe encouraged reflections on daily life, leading to revelations about care expectations, preparedness, and meaningful design possibilities within caringscapes.


2024 - Technology caregiving: collectively re-imagining informal networks of care ︎

Sheahan, J.

AGENET Conference, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
In recognising the many ways in which care is configured and manifests, technology support in later life has become a common type of informal caregiving that remains misunderstood. While the rise of ‘senior-friendly’ technology has come with an ageing population, these often provide their own challenges to older people, seen to limit and infantilise them,yet with the genral growth of digital healthcare applications, caregiving as design support has become a key aspect of informal caring. In examining the experiences of technology caregiving amongst older adults across Scotland, we highlight the potential intergenerational and maintenance qualities that these emergent forms of informal care provide.


2024 - Journey Mapping Long COVID: Agency and Social Support for Long-Hauling ︎

Figueiredo, B., Sheahan, J., Zheng, Z., Luo, R., Bird, S., Itsiopoulos, C., Wan, D.W.L., Jessup, R., Xenos, S.

Social Science & Medicine
To understand the experiences of individuals with long COVID, or "long-haulers," we mapped individual journeys towards providing a framework for potential healthcare interventions by mapping personal patient journeys. The resulting dimensions of patient agency and social support highlight the importance of person-centred interventions considering patients' unique experiences and environments.


I acknowledge the peoples on whose lands I conduct my work, and respectfully acknowledge  Ancestors and Elders, past, present and emerging.


©2024 Jacob Sheahan