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Current: Director of Research & Creative Practice Development Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
I currently oversee research development activities within the college to support strategic research initiatives; assist in developing new research opportunities and industry partnerships; and work directly with faculty, staff, and external partners to build capacity and administer the research and creative practice enterprise.
Mellon Research Director Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities / ArtsEngine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Led a translational research agenda to integrate primary and secondary research with the design of participatory workshops, foresight and planning, visual communications, and decision support tools for innovation in higher education, evaluation, and research development. As PI for the Mellon Foundation-supported SPARC project, I provided supervision and mentorship for a research team of professional and student researchers, co-produced our full range of research products, built our communications and digital humanities-based research infrastructure, conducted interpretive and data science based analyses of response texts, delivered policy briefings, developed collaborative partnerships, and provided peer leadership for a national alliance of faculty, academic leadership, and other stakeholders. Our work provided foundational insights and best practices for collaborative interdisciplinary team formation and for navigating epistemic conflicts across research domains.
Senior Consultant XPLANE, Portland
Led sensemaking and discovery with multi-disciplinary teams to provide strategic design solutions and help large organizations clarify, communicate, and realize their desired futures. Projects included culture mapping, storytelling and communications strategy, organizational change design, and customer-centric framework mapping for integrated product, service, and media offerings.
Founding Partner CoClimate, Dublin, IRE / San Francisco
CoClimate is an artist-led think-tank whose mission is to provoke, stimulate, and inspire new connections between people, technology, and the environment. CoClimate’s work has been supported and featured by the World Health Organization, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, Invoking the Pause, the Headland Center for the Arts, the ICLEI Cities Pavilion at COP21, Science Gallery Dublin, Le Musée de l’Homme, Paris, IdeasCity at the New Museum in New York City.
Experience Designer WattTime, Berkeley
Designed concept-to-launch product-service experiences that applied behavioral economic principles to connect consumer energy use-practices in order to prioritize cleaner grid energy fuel sources. This included market strategy, web platform development, message framing, and experience design to test the concept of direct-to-consumer nudges for for a consumer-facing and B2B clean energy start-up. Ultimately, WattTime pioneered the use of automated emissions reductions in smart devices to shift the balance of electricity demand to cleaner fuel sources.
Research Director ecoAmerica, San Francisco / Washington D.C.
Led ecoAmerica’s social science-driven research agenda in cooperation with research partners, NGO, and foundation stakeholders. Our portfolio included national public opinion surveys, secondary research on strategic communication practices and climate-health impacts, and demographic and psychographic insights to better leverage the diversity of US public engagement around climate change solutions.
Research Manager Technology Horizons; Institute for the Future, Palo Alto
Led and managed strategic foresight and design research programs around the future of technology, higher education, health, and infrastructure futures in partnership with Fortune 500 companies, universities and colleges, foundations, and non-profits.
Design Ecologist Center for the Study of Science, Technology, and Policy (CSTEP), Bangalore
As a member of the Next-Generation Infrastructures Lab, I leveraged integrated methods from visual communications, serious game design, social sciences, simulation modeling, and tactical-media to co-create policy insights with an international, interdisciplinary team of computer scientists, public policy and engineering researchers, and social scientists. Collaborations included decision support for state and national Indian government officials and NGOs around critical issues in national energy policy, rural livelihoods, urban planning, disaster response management, public health, food chain supply systems, and smart grid technologies.
Design Researcher Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS; now Vihara Innovation Network), Bangalore/New Delhi
Ethnographic research and analysis, trends analysis, strategic foresight, design research, editing, and art direction for The Emerging Economy Report: an in-depth compendium of data, analysis, and design insight for service innovation in the emerging markets of Brazil, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, India, China, and Indonesia.
Founding Faculty / Artist-in-Residence Center for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA), Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore
Co-launched an academic graduate program, co-curricular hacker space, and incubator for cultural entrepreneurship and new pedagogical practices. Responsibilities included: mentoring of postgraduate and undergraduate students; designing new curriculum and program offerings aimed at the integration of the contemporary visual arts, new media technologies and communications, cultural entrepreneurship, and social studies of science and technology, I developed collaborative research partnerships and grant proposals, while serving as co-organizer of Space Arts and Bio Arts symposiums and leading student integrative design teams to international competition at 2008 Microsoft Research Faculty Summit. Courses taught included: Visual Communications, Information Design, Experimental Film Analysis, Design for Sustainability, Interaction Design Lab I (Experiential Learning & Education), Interaction Design Lab II (Watercasting), CEMA Graduate Seminar, Tilonia Design Research Trip, Design for Activism, Design for Corruption, Product-Service Systems, and Strategic Game Design.
MFA, Art & Design, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (2007) Strategies for Creative Research at the Interface of Contemporary Art and Life Science [Advisors: Satoru Takahashi, Jay Lemke, Bobbi Low]
MA, Ecology, Evolution & Behavior, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (2003) Life-History Trade-Offs Between Parasite Resistance and Reproductive Effort in a Freshwater Snail [Advisor: Curtis Lively]
BA, Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (2000) Genetic Architecture of Morphological Trait Co-Variation in Silene latifolia [Advisor: Lynda Delph]
Prior: Humboldt State University [Deep Ecology + Sociology of Environmental Movements w/Bill Devall], University of North Texas [Film Analysis w/Justin Wyatt]