curriculum + program development

Currently, I am the coordinator of and advisor for the Anthropology + Design Graduate Minor at the New School for Social Research. This minor allows graduate students to explore the designed world through the conceptual frameworks and grounded methods of anthropology. 

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From 2019-2023, I actively worked alongside the director of the graduate program in Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons in transforming the curriculum. As part of the Leadership Council, I managed the thesis experience, and my contribution was instrumental in rethinking the studio format. Overall, we have taken radical steps to make the program more integrated, based on the understanding that complex social, political, environmental, and economic issues—those that the program engages—cannot be adequately addressed through a segmented course structure.

 

Building on knowledge gained from our collective experience with social science, liberal arts, and STEM programs, these changes to the curriculum foster intellectual dexterity, create time and space for dialogue and structured reflection, and embrace an ethos of engagement that extends beyond the university. Through team-taught, clustered courses, we have implemented a scaffolded structure to support a research hub of thought and action.

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From 2017-2019, I worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Wesleyan University to introduce design strategies across the university’s curriculum as a contribution to the newly created Integrated Design, Engineering, and Applied Sciences (IDEAS) program. I collaborated with colleagues from engineering and the Center for the Arts and this program, established initially as a minor, is now being turned into a major area of study, based on our successes. My participation also deepened the understanding of design practices in relation to engineering, artistic practices, and work in the social sciences. I built an archive of design-based pedagogical tools including resources for conducting creative sessions and incorporating these into teaching and learning contexts. Professors at the university from East Asian Studies, Biology, Religious Studies, and STS, among others, are now using these methods, which were first introduced through a series of workshops I initiated, in their courses.

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I also worked closely with the founding director of Parsons’ MA in Design Studies in developing that program’s curriculum from the ground up. Development of these three programs involved creating curricula, networking with existing university resources, outlining rigorous objectives, and tracking progress toward the goals set.

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