I’m a design researcher and educator focusing on inclusive innovation and sustainable design. I use my skills and lived experience to guide the design process. I use a deeply sensitive and human-centered approach to create diverse and inclusive climate-positive products, businesses, and experiences.
Photo by Isabel Fajardo.
Co-designing for a green future
Research & Strategy
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Systems thinking is is a great tool to make sense of complex issues, such as prison reform and mental health, and offers us holistic way to investigate factors and interactions to influence your social impact strategy.
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Service design affords us a way to unpack how maximize your company’s effectiveness in pursuing the impact work you wish to achieve, creating operational coherence for the macro- and micro-level for your organization.
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For organizations who are passionate about aligning your product and services with ESG objectives, sustainable design considers the environmental, social, and economic impacts from the initial phase through to the end of life.
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Human-centered design affords us a starting framework when we design something new. It allows us to deepen our knowledge of the nuances of your market opportunity and uncover holistic ways to answer your customer needs.
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With social impact strategy, we will step through planning, measuring, and attributing positive social change to an organization's work and actions. My skills in this area also include business design, planning, marketing, and identity.
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Using an integrated approach to designing new products, we’ll take a systematic look at all aspects relevant for the design of your new product. My focus is primarily in industrial design, where topics such as function, form, use, life-cycle, production, sales, and sustainability are crucial.
I am an avid researcher of how society shapes and builds our reality. I constantly ask myself: How might products be better tailored to meet customers' needs? Is there a business model in place to ensure viability? How can these products be marketed? And further, how can products become a vehicle for social innovation?
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Design Research & Strategy: Eat Street Revitalization
Ethnographic and community research for the Minneapolis neighborhood Whittier, investigating ways that design can chart ways to revitalize the neighborhood’s rich restaurant history in South Minneapolis.
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Design Strategy: TAO Collective
A community proposal seeking to monetize and incentivize membership for social and monetary support for fine artists. This proposal examines alternative business models using systems thinking to analyze financial flow through the arts and conceptualize a new regenerative and stable way to secure funding for the arts.
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Design Research: TDNDY
Design research proposal for a non-profit seeking to create new avenues of support and community-building for survivors of sexual assault. This case study uses design-thinking to uncover ways to look at the human-centered issues, such as persona, body storming, and empathy mapping, and culminates with life cycle analysis to ensure products proposed align with sustainable development goals.
