I build safe, inclusive technology and the teams that make it.

In code, in research, in embroidery and in activism, I care about the same two things: work that holds up when nobody’s looking, and who gets to be at the centre of the story.

  • Tech leadership
  • Health tech
  • HCI
  • Gamification
  • Equity
  • Design systems
  • Teaching
  • Fairy tales
  • Embroidery
  • Pottery
  • Dancing

About me

Привіт!

I'm a developer who grew into a tech lead, a researcher who still codes for fun, and a teacher who likes to make things by hand.

Most of my 15 years in tech went into medical software that hospitals and patients rely on every day. I helped build the platform, then the team behind it, then the quality system around it. As a researcher, I study how gamification can make learning fairer; I’ve also taught web development and databases to computer science bachelor’s students.

Off the clockbooksplantsdancinghikingtravelcrafts

What's next

Looking for my next project, from early 2027

Remote, solo or with a team: leading engineering, research or innovation, teaching, doing independent research or supporting research teams. Healthcare, education and culture are my favourite fields, and work on equity, accessibility and feminism makes me especially happy.

My strongest suit

Technical leadership

Code reviews, design systems, integrations, and helping developers get unstuck.

What I geek out on

Human-centred research

HCI, user studies, co-design, learning analytics and applied ML on clinical data.

What I love sharing

Teaching & training

University labs and lectures, thesis supervision, volunteer training on conference safety.

120k+

people use software I led engineering for

0

non-conformities at my latest medical-device audit

€984K

European R&D project I lead, with a €492K subsidy secured

8

years running the arts and crafts fair at a Ukrainian festival

Open for projects

Ways to work with me

  • Tech & innovation lead

    From a few hours a week to almost full time: setting up engineering processes and tracking tools, AI integrations that actually make sense, hiring and mentoring, release planning, and WCAG 2.2 accessibility audits.

  • Medical-device readiness

    Setting up a quality management system or improving the one you have, then working side by side with your team to get ready for ISO 13485, IEC 62304, MDR and EU AI Act requirements. The processes stay light enough that people actually follow them.

  • Workshops & teaching

    Courses, guest lectures and team workshops, from the technical to the crafty: modern web development, HCI, accessibility, gamification, safer and more accessible events, bystander intervention, or hands-on embroidery.

Tell me about your project

Безконечник · the endless line, often read as a wish for a long life

Selected work

Code, research and craft, side by side. Filter if you’re here for one of them.

← first hire

Tech

From the first hire to 100+ releases

Built the engineering team from scratch, from my first hire to a team of 10–15, while growing from full-stack developer to tech lead. Along the way: 100+ releases of a platform used in 100+ hospitals, a shared design system for web and iOS, EHR and wearable integrations, plus AI-assisted code review and testing.

Sticker in bold blackletter type reading “ISO 13485 certified”.

Tech

Making quality a habit, not an audit

Led a first-time ISO 13485 certification, passed every annual MDD audit, and prepared the MDR transition with IEC 62304 built into everyday engineering.

Tech

AI that helps doctors spot patient risks early

Part of TREAT, a European ITEA4 R&D project I lead. I write and manage the grant and subsidy proposals, and run applied research with hospital and academic partners, including predictive ML on clinical (OMOP) data.

Figure: Pastushenko & Passmore, CHI EA ’23

Research

Play and Resistance

CHI ’23 · Extended Abstracts

What would gamified learning tools look like if marginalised students helped design them?

Read the paper (opens in a new tab)

Figure: SIGCHI Equity Committee

Research

Safer conferences, built together

CHI ’25 · Extended Abstracts

How can a research community keep its own events safe?

Read the paper (opens in a new tab)

Coming soon

Craft

«Тепер розкажу я»

Now I will tell it

What happens when the girl in the fairy tale gets to tell it herself?

Illustration of Babusia, the game’s grandmother character: round glasses, white hair, a red headscarf with berries, a coral necklace and a red embroidered Ukrainian dress with a white sheepskin vest.

Craft

«Бабусині казки»

Grandma’s tales

Can a child’s first game teach Ukrainian myths in two languages?

Ромб · a sown field, often read as a wish for plenty

Research & teaching

The PhD, more papers, and the classrooms and communities around them.

PhD defence · March 2027

My PhD · Brno University of Technology

Power Play in Gamified Education: Engineering Adaptive and Fair Information Systems

How gamified assignments can adapt to each student without leaving anyone behind, using dynamic difficulty adjustment, learning analytics and flow. As an Erasmus+ researcher at KU Leuven's e-Media Lab, I also used gamification to teach electric circuits.

  • Gamification
  • Learning analytics
  • Equity & bias
  • Feminist HCI
  • Dashboard design
  • Serious games

More papers

  1. Mindtrek ’25

    Feminist Food Futures: Speculative Utopias for Technology-Supported Nutrition Care

    O’Neill, Mandryk, Pastushenko, Deckers, Wensveen, Birk

  2. CHI EA ’25

    Co-Creating Equity Initiatives: Community Accountability and Volunteer Training for Safer Conferences

    Pastushenko, O’Neill, Gardner, Henriques, Neumann, MacArthur

  3. CHI EA ’23

    Play and Resistance: Intersecting Identities and Implicit Biases in Gamified Educational Tools

    Pastushenko, Passmore

  4. CHI EA ’20

    A Methodology for Multimodal Learning Analytics and Flow Experience Identification within Gamified Assignments

    Pastushenko, Oliveira, Isotani, Hruška

All publications on Google Scholar (opens in a new tab)

Teaching

  • Information Systems, Web Design, Internet Applications, Database SystemsBrno University of Technology · 2017–2021
  • Designed and supervised new lab exercises for Web Design
  • Supervised theses on educational and e-health mobile apps

Equity work

  • Interim Chair, ACM SIGCHI Equity Committee2022–2025 · conference safety and bystander training
  • Invited presenter, SIGCHI Futures Summit2024
  • Moderator, SIGCHI Equity Talks2021

Service & a prize

  • Video Chair CHI PLAY ’21, Web Chair CHI PLAY ’20
  • Reviewer for CHI, CHI PLAY and ISMAR
  • Best Paper, TEEM ’18Educational Innovation track

Восьмипроменева зірка · the eight-point star, an old sun sign

The studio

Embroidery, clay and yarn, made by hand and slowly.

Round hoop embroidered with waves in many shades of blue, with beads and sequins, around the stitched Ukrainian words «Руський военний корабль іди на хуй».
«Руський военний корабль…»
Embroidery with beads and sequins
Cross-stitched hummingbird in greens and pinks, hovering over a pale pink five-petal flower, on bright red fabric in an oval wooden hoop.
Hummingbird
Cross-stitch on red fabric
Coming home: framed vintage print of two thatched farmhouses and a bare tree, with a Ukrainian-style pattern cross-stitched in yellow and white thread across the sky.
Coming home
Cross-stitch over a vintage print
Embroidery in a hoop: a half sunflower in yellow, orange and red above the stitched words «Семечки в карман поклади», with vertical stripes of yellow, orange, red and black below, photographed among magnolia flowers.
«Семечки в карман поклади»
Stitch over aida
Closure: round-bellied ceramic vase with a tall pale neck and a blue and rust glaze, standing in the surf on a beach at dusk.
Closure
Oxide colouring, clear glaze
Dragon vase: hand-built ceramic vessel shaped like an open shell, made of overlapping scale-like slabs with a pale green-grey glaze, against a blue sky.
Dragon vase
Hand-built ceramic sculpture
Be a thistle: round ceramic plate hand-painted with a grey thistle with lilac buds and curling leaves, inside a grey rim.
Be a thistle
Hand-painted ceramic plate
Two stacked cream ceramic vessels, the lower one cross-stitched with red and black thread through holes in the clay, held in front of an embroidered Ukrainian blouse.
Stitched vessels
Ceramic with cross-stitch in thread

Community

Bringing people together

and raising funds

Fundraising coordinator for Ukrainians in Leuven (2022–2025): charity events and Christmas markets that showcase Ukrainian culture and raise money for war relief. Before that, I coordinated up to 50 volunteers and ran the arts and crafts fair at the Mlynomania festival for eight years.

Open for

Commissions, custom projects & collaborations

I take on commissions and custom pieces in embroidery, clay and crochet, from a single gift to a small series. I also love art collaborations with other makers, studios and cultural organisations.

Tell me what you have in mind, and I’ll come back with ideas, a timeline and a price.

Get in touch about a project

Let’s talk.

About a role, a research collaboration, a course to teach, or embroidery. Email is the best way to reach me.

CV available on request.

Languages I work in

  • Ukrainiannative
  • EnglishC1 · fluent
  • CzechB2 · confident
  • DutchA2 · learning
Clinical insights dashboard, enlarged.