Dr. Aashna Mittal

Biography

Aashna Mittal is a researcher in serious gaming at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at TU Delft. Her research focuses on the design and use of serious games to engage stakeholders and support decision-making. Her primary interests include serious gaming, stakeholder engagement, and behavioral interventions for climate adaptation. Aashna is passionate about transdisciplinary research that finds new ways to work with stakeholders to ensure that scientific research addresses real-world problems. She employs qualitative methods in serious game design, facilitation, interviews, stakeholder analysis, policy analysis, and conceptual systems modeling. Aashna has an interdisciplinary academic background combining engineering, liberal arts, and policymaking. Her PhD research (2020-2025) is dedicated to developing serious games that increase awareness of urban climate adaptation solutions at the household and neighborhood levels. Prior to her PhD, she graduated cum laude with a master’s degree in Engineering Policy Analysis from TU Delft in 2019. Aashna has co-developed several serious games, including 'AgriLemma', which aims to raise awareness among agricultural actors regarding water retention and nutrient recovery solutions as part of the EU Horizon 2020 project WATERAGRI. Other projects include 'SuDSbury', focusing on sustainable urban drainage solutions for urban residents, and 'Urban dRain', which engages municipalities and residents in the Netherlands to negotiate and co-develop stormwater management plans at the neighborhood level.

Research Interests