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.
Working with design clients: Tools and advice for successful partnerships
“Working with design clients: Tools and advice for successful partnerships” is a practical guide to help design students and educators manage and operate student-run design firms in higher education. To be published in October 2024, I co-wrote this textbook with Meaghan Dee, Associate Professor at Virginia Tech University.
Clean Energy Community Initiative
Since 2022, I have been developing community-led strategies and co-design workshops for UW-Madison’s Clean Energy Community Initiative. Key community partners include MTERA (Midwest Tribal Energy Resource Association) and the Great Lakes Environmental Justice TCTAC (Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center). I have also developed and facilitated workshops to foster faculty-led large-scale collaborations in UW’s Grainger Institute for Engineering.
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”.
Anti-racism Transformation Team at Columbia
As a member of the Anti-racism Transformation Team at Columbia College Chicago, I collaborate with 24 other students, staff, faculty, and administrators as we collectively develop antiracist strategy and action at the college.
Anti-racism community of practice at ID
In 2020, following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor as well as the increase in anti-Asian discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic, I helped start an Anti-racist Community of Practice at IIT Institute of Design, through which we are examining our curriculum, policies and practices across the school.