Meet Lorena Ianiro: Communication Design Major
October 17, 2024 | Courtney Russell

By: Natalie Pond, sophomore at Miami University
Lorena Ianiro is a Communication Design major who is working on a research project to create an inclusion forum to uplift marginalized voices. Below is an interview with Lorena discussing the goals of the forum.
How does Miami encourage you to pursue your interests?
“So Miami offers a lot of different areas that I can pursue my interests. Off the top of my head, the first thing I think of is there are so many student organizations that I could join that correspond with my interests. And also I have like opportunities, I’m pursuing right now, like working with my advisor to create this inclusion forum. Yeah, I think people who I’ve met who care, have been very helpful in helping me pursue things that I care about.”
Can you explain the inclusion forum and research you’ve been working on?
“So this year, another undergraduate student and my advisors and I have been organizing and looking for ways to create a sense of community in our department and the design cohort. And, we decided that a great way to do that would be to create an inclusion forum. It’s inspired by the annual inclusion forum that takes place every year, but this one is specific to design and we structured it a little bit differently, to better suit our needs. So in our forum, we’re talking about like the marginalized voices in design, how to amplify those voices, how to include people who might have been excluded from our community.”
In what ways are you representing these groups or groups having been marginalized?
“So it’s important to me to uplift marginalized voices, I guess directly because I’m Latina and I’m also part of the LGBTQ community and less than two years ago, I was diagnosed with autism and ADHD. I’ve sort of been fighting through school. By that I mean like fighting to accomplish what I know I’m capable of. I’ve always felt that every group that I’ve been a part of has, like, detected my neurodivergent traits even though I was undiagnosed and has used that as reasons to exclude me or has said that you can be part of the conversation as long as you conform, or as long as you put yourself down and conform to others and then you can have a voice on the table. I’m challenging that idea because I want to be respected for who I am, and I want that for other people too.”
What are your goals for the forum?
“So our goals are to educate, to collaborate, to inspire, and we want to lift up marginalized voices in design. We want to bring attention to the issues that exist when it comes to things like accessibility in design representation.”
What advice would you give to a student who wants to get involved in research? For something that is impactful and so big but they are afraid to jump into it?
“I guess to just make sure they have a good support system in place, make sure they know what their goals are and know what’s motivating them, and take that motivation and just run with it. Just like run with your friends, your intrinsic motivation, and the form or the shape of your research will just sort of take its own shape and become something great.”