I am an associate professor at the University of Georgia (UGA) researching interdisciplinary design processes. In this space, I investigate how accessibility is created and negotiated in creative making. My book Fashion, Disability, & Co-design, released in June of 2024 by Bloomsbury Publishing, offers a curated sampling of co-design approaches inclusive of disability, and a close study into clothing applications.
Throughout my professional experience, I have held different positions in industry, academia, and entrepreneurial business. This has influenced my research and teaching to be interdisciplinary and collaborative. I am one of the founding members and now board member of a national award-winning educational program at Open Style Lab (OSL), a women-led nonprofit organization. My teaching practice, highlighted in the NYTimes, focuses on helping people develop creative strategies to apply inclusive design principles and critically think about the social implications of disability in a design process.
Before joining UGA, I taught at The New School, Parsons School of Design and was a researcher at MIT. Earlier in my career, I was UX Designer and Design Strategist for Mobile Device research team at Samsung Electronics, Ltd in South Korea. Several of my early designs are found in Samsung feature and smartphones. As an inventor of two US design patents, I enjoy serving on jury committees and organizations that advance the arts & design. For speaking engagements, please contact <here.>
Press
Washington Post
Forbes
Wall Street Journal
New York Times Style
Brain & Life
PBS
Awards
Smithsonian National Design Award
RISD Emerging Leader Award
Courses
Digital Platforms FA 2021
Senior Capstone SP 2021
Visual Narratives SP 2021
Publications
Books
Fashion, Disability, & Codesign: A Human-Centered Design Approach (2024)
Universal Materiality (2018)
Book Chapter Contribution’s
Fashion Thinking by Fiona Dieffenbacher
Fashion Activist by Ben Barry and Deborah Christel
FASHION + READER by Dirk Reynders and Marie Genevieve Cyr
Aging and Disability: Beyond Stereotypes to Inclusion by Caroline M. Cilio and Tracy A. Lustig
Conference Presentations & Abstracts
ASIA Conference – The American Spinal Injury Association 2022
Hack-Ability: Using Co-Design to Develop an Accessible Toolkit for Adding Pockets to Garments – Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Georgia Tech – Construct3D 2018
Workshops
Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), Trans-Bodied Knowledge
Hong Kong Poly Institute of Technology
Cooper Hewitt Museum
Exhibitions
Universal Materiality, Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries
The Body: Fashion and Physique Symposium FIT
Work Juried
Cooper Hewitt National Design Awards 2022
National Endowments 2021
MIT DeSForM 2019
Disrupt Aging at Parsons School of Fashion 2018
Scholastic Arts 2017
Reshape Wearables Industry3D
Invited Presentations
MIT, Assistive Technology
KAIST, Seoul Korea
University of Pennsylvania, Stuart Weitzman School of Design
Parsons School of Design, School of Strategic Design Management
Yale University, Business School
UGG Inclusive Design
Columbia University, Teacher’s College
LVMH Inclusive Design
SXSW 2018