Hello! I am a designer, researcher, facilitator, and educator working for equity and social justice.
Design as Activism Symposium
I am serving as the co-principal investigator and project lead for Design as Activism, a two-day public symposium on Sept. 13-14, 2024. It will include a day-long activation across the city, followed by a second day of invited speakers, workshops, and an evening panel/event at the Institute of Design at Illinois Tech. Invited speakers will include Chicago-based activists, design practitioners, scholars, commentators, and experts from diverse backgrounds.
Welcoming new arrivals to Chicago
In spring 2024, I led a team of researchers at the Institute of Design who sought to frame the migrant “crisis” in Chicago through a design-led systems perspective. The project’s goal is to develop effective systems frameworks to help decision-makers and on-the-ground workers meet the needs of new arrivals while also addressing the overall well-being of everyone in our community.
Anti-oppressive design framework
This conceptual model functions as a scaffolding for bringing a critical awareness of power into design methods and can support designers to take action in their daily design work.
Radically hopeful visions of anti-racist futures
During a final phase of an anti-racism team training at an arts and media college, Hillary Carey and I facilitated a collectively futuring process for the team in which we imagined an anti-racist future of the college. Our article about this project, “Radically hopeful visions: Futuring for institutional anti-racism work” was published in Futures journal in February 2024.
An angry assemblage of algorithmic accountability
This critical visualization examines a case study of bias in a medical algorithm which under-identified black patients for high-risk health prevention program by making the data set “color blind”.
These are Love(d) Letters
I created the graphic design and imagery for this book that investigates the rhetorical form of the love letter through visual and textual exploration. The cover and book design was named a winner at Association of University Presses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show 2020.
Innovation & Impact: Cultivating Food Equity
Using entrepreneurial thinking to generate ideas that imagine a more equitable future food system, students learn to recognize and cultivate opportunities for a range of innovative projects such as business ventures, social and civic services, and creative projects in media, arts, and design. Designed as a transformative DEI educational experience, the class offers structures for students to assess, leverage and add to their own skills sets through transdisciplinary collaboration and proactive self-evaluation practices.
Equity Commons
What is the Chicago network of individuals and organizations that are working towards equity by seeking to improve the lives of people who are subject to systemic oppression due to their identity? A key idea in this model is the creation of a communication platform in which community members, organizations, government, researchers, and business interests share and build knowledge in an open exchange of ideas.
Paper Violets, Vellum Prose
In 2017, I worked with my colleague and frequent collaborator, Ames Hawkins, on her project, “Paper Violets, Vellum Prose.” My contributions to this multi-component art piece consisted of design refinement and execution of a wallpaper design, design for a window installation, and design guidance for a needlepoint quilt. The installation piece was exhibited at the “Ill-At-Ease” exhibition at SUNY-Buffalo, Spring 2017.