Tag: academic publishing

CFP: Academic Abstract Writing Program 2026

Application Deadline: April 25, 2026.

The online Academic Abstract Writing Program 2026 at Design Incubation offers a series of activities that will help design researchers craft a written synopsis of their research. The outcome(s) goals include a concisely written document, typically expected of academic publication venues. This includes conferences, journals, grant applications, publishers, and academic organizations.

The program is designed along two tracks:

  1. The first track is for design faculty who are new to academia and want a program that will help them navigate the academic publication venues.
  2. The second track is aimed at design faculty who have established their research agenda and activities and would like to explore ways to broaden their scope of publication opportunities.

Application:

Academic Abstract Writing Workshop Program

This program is designed to facilitate design researchers in the development of their academic research abstract(s) for conferences, grant proposals, journal articles, and other publications.

The program does not guarantee abstract submissions will be accepted by the academic venues. The program is designed to improve your understanding of abstract writing, and the factors involved in developing a successful abstract submission.

Complete all required application information. Submit as much information as possible in the other fields to help us to understand your interests, goals, and challenges.

Seats are limited for this fellowship program. Upon acceptance, there is a $125 (members)/ $175 (non-members) program registration fee.

Step 1 of 2

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Name(Required)
Email(Required)
Secondary Email
Sometimes emails get spam filtered out and a secondary email helps with correspondences.
We generally do not call or text, unless it seems that our emails are not getting to you. Whenever possible, provide a telephone number that we can sms you.
Professional Title

Program Track(Required)
I am applying to the following track:
Goals
I am interested in:

Submit a short biography (250 words) describing your current position and professional research goals.
Please describe (250 words) the research project that you are considering.
Formats
Please select all the program formats in which you are interested.
Challenges
Select all that reflect your challenges.
Please add comments or other information you would like to share.
Please list and/or describe the publications, conferences, grants, organizations, venues, or types of places where you would like to submit your abstract(s).
Submit a draft of an existing abstract, or a summary proposal of the work you are doing, challenges you encounter, and goals you aim to attain.
Accepted file types: pdf, docx, doc, rtf, txt, Max. file size: 5 MB.

Submit a cv or resume.

This will help us to understand your experiences and interests and to develop the program that best suits your needs.

Accepted file types: docx, doc, pdf, txt, rtf, Max. file size: 5 MB.

Designing Your Research Agenda (DYRA) 5.1

A panel discussion by design scholars about their research journeys.

Designing Your Research Agenda (DYRA) 5.1
Friday, April 17, 2026
1:00PM EST
Virtual Event

Designing Your Research Agenda (DYRA) is a panel discussion and open forum for design scholars and researchers to discuss aspects of their research agendas. We aim to open a dialogue regarding the challenges of discovering one’s design research inquiry. DYRA is a design research webinar series.

Researcher Panelists:

Presentations plus an open Q+A and informal discussion.

Some of the questions we are asking our panelists include:

  • How did you determine your research agenda (high level timeline of your career/trajectory)
  • How do you define research and why do you think it matters/for society, the field, yourself?
  • How do your department and institution define and support the work you do?
  • How would you describe/categorize your department and institution?
  • If you were going to position your work within a category, would you say your research addresses: design theory, design history, design practice, design research (traditional graphic design, speculative design, UXUI, typography, AR, VR, creative computing, design solutions, etc.), design pedagogy, or something else?
  • What barriers (if any) exist at your institution or in the field for creating and disseminating your research?

This event brings together academics from various stages in their careers and from different types of institutions. We hope that by sharing experiences, we can support others on their journeys. 

Lesley-Ann Noel
Dean of the Faculty of Design
OCAD University

Lesley‑Ann Noel, PhD, is a design researcher, educator, and Dean of the Faculty of Design at OCAD University. Her research centers on equity-focused, community-led design, drawing from critical race theory, decolonial practices, and participatory methodologies. She investigates how positionality, lived experience, and local knowledge shape design inquiry—and how design researchers can cultivate agendas that are responsible, relational, and grounded in context. Her work includes developing reflective tools such as The Designer’s Critical Alphabet and the Positionality Wheel, which support designers in articulating values, motivations, and epistemological commitments within their research programs. Across her global practice in the Caribbean, Brazil, the U.S., and Canada, she champions pluriversality, social change, and the expansion of who gets to produce design knowledge. She is the author of Design Social Change and co-editor of The Black Experience in Design.

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Robert Harland
Reader in Urban Graphic Heritage
Loughborough University

Rob holds a PhD in Architecture (Social Sciences) from the School of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Nottingham (2011) and an undergraduate degree in Information Graphics from Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham (1986). His transdisciplinary research explores urban heritage through the lens of graphic design, under the guise of urban graphic heritage.

He co-leads a team who launched the TOWN Observatory in 2025 and was subsequently invited to join the UN-Habitat Global Urban Observatory steering committee. In the same year he became deputy lead for Loughborough University’s UNESCO Chair in Storytelling Education for Sustainability, having joined the university’s renowned Storytelling Academy.

Known also for his interest in graphic design studies, he has led several funded projects with NGOs in Australia, Brazil, China, South Africa and United Kingdom. Recent collaborators include United Kingdom National Commission for UNESCO, Nelson Mandela Foundation, David Roche Gallery, and Loughborough Library Local Studies Volunteer Group.

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Kelly Salchow MacArthur
Professor
Michigan State University

Kelly Salchow MacArthur is a Professor of Graphic Design at Michigan State University, and currently an Honorary Visiting Researcher at University College Cork (Ireland). She received her MFA in Graphic Design with Honors from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and BS in Graphic Design Magna Cum Laude from the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. Before joining the faculty at MSU, she taught at Kansas City Art Institute, RISD and The College of New Jersey.

Kelly’s design practice and creative research focus on environmental awareness, advocacy and action. Her work has been disseminated internationally through exhibition, design award, conference, and publication, and is included in several permanent collections. She is President Emerita of the international design organization, United Designs Alliance and AIGA Detroit. She is a 2-time Olympic rower, a 2-time Olympian Artist, and a Member of the IOC’s Culture and Olympic Heritage Commission.

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New Director of Design History and Theory

Welcoming Dr. Leslie Atzmon as Director of Design History and Theory

Starting this January 2026, we welcome Dr. Leslie Atzmon as Director of Design History and Theory. Atzmon has been participating with our team for several months. She is currently on the jury of the 2025 Design Incubation Educators Awards, as well as other initiatives we have under development.

Leslie Atzmon is a designer and design historian who teaches at Eastern Michigan University. She co-edited the collections Encountering Things: Design and Theories of Things (Bloomsbury 2017) and The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury 2019). Atzmon and colleague Ryan Molloy were awarded a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) ArtWorks grant from 2012-2014 to support experimental book design workshops and the creation and production of The Open Book Project book. Atzmon has a new collection, entitled Visual Ecologies of Placemaking, edited with Pamela Stewart (forthcoming Bloomsbury 2026).

Atzmon’s current work mainly investigates the intersections between design and science, with a focus on biodesign. In 2016, Atzmon was a Fulbright fellow at Central Saint Martins UAL, UK doing research on Darwin and design thinking. This led to the essay, “Intelligible Design: The Origin and Visualization of Species,” in the journal Communication Design (2016). In 2019/2020, she curated the exhibition Design and Science, which ran at Eastern Michigan’s University Gallery and The Esther Klein Gallery/Science Center in Philadelphia. She also edited a related collection entitled Design and Science (Bloomsbury 2023). Atzmon is currently working on a biodesign textbook, entitled Biodesign in Context (forthcoming Lived Spaces 2027), with Professor Diana Nicholas of Drexel University.

Welcome to the team, Leslie!

CFP: 2025 Design Incubation Communication Design Educators Awards

ENTRY DEADLINE EXTENDED: JANUARY 15, 2026.

Call for Nominations and Entries for the 2025 Design Incubation Educators Awards Competition.

Design Incubation announces a call for nominations and entries for the 2025 awards for communication design educators in the areas of scholarship, teaching, service. The aim of the awards program is to discover and recognize new scholarship (creative work and publications), teaching, and service in our broad and varied discipline. We hope to expand the design record, promote excellence and share knowledge within the field.

Nominations and Entries

We ask colleagues and mentors to identify outstanding creative work, publications, teaching, and service being created by design educators in the field communication design and to nominate these individuals for an award. Nominations will be accepted until December 31, 2025 January 15, 2026.

Entry Guidelines

Entries will be accepted until (December 31, 2025). Nominations are not required to enter in this scholarly competition. Complete the online entry form (https://designincubation.com/design-incubation-awards-competition-entry-form/) with the following:

Title: Description of project and outcomes (not to exceed 500 words.)

Supporting Materials: (limited to 5-page medium resolution pdf of artwork; web links to websites, videos, other online resources; published documents or visual documents.)

Biography of applicant/s (150 words per applicant.)

Curriculum vitae of applicant/s.

Entry fee: $35.00 USD.

2025 JURY

Steven McCarthy (Chair) University of Minnesota

Leslie Atzmon – https://www.emich.edu/art/faculty-staff/l_atzmon.php

Bernard Caniffe – http://piecestudio.org/case-studies, https://www.design.iastate.edu/profiles/canniffe/

Matt Gaynor – https://www.memphis.edu/artanddesign/people/matthew-gaynor.php

Myra Thiessen –https://www.monash.edu/mada/design/people/myra-thiessen

Leslie Atzmon is a designer, design historian, and design critic. She has published in Eye, Design and Culture, Communication Design, and Design Issues. Atzmon edited Visual Rhetoric and the Eloquence of Design (Parlor Press 2011) and co-edited Encountering Things: Design and Theories of Things (Bloomsbury 2017) with industrial designer Prasad Boradkar. Most recently, she edited The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury 2019) with Teal Triggs of the Royal College of Art. In 2016, she was a Fulbright Fellow at Central Saint Martins in London investigating the topic of Darwin and design thinking. Atzmon and colleague Ryan Molloy were awarded a Sappi Ideas that Matter Grant, which supports design that changes lives for the better. For the grant, students rebranded Ypsilanti’s non-profit Riverside Arts Center as a community arts hub. Atzmon recently curated the exhibition Design and Science, and is currently working on a collection also entitled Design and Science (forthcoming Bloomsbury 2020).

Bernard Canniffe is a current professor and former department chair of graphic design at Iowa State University, and has held faculty positions at MICA (Baltimore), MCAD (Minneapolis) and Ringling College of Art and Design (Sarasota), A native of Wales (UK), he has presented and exhibited on a global scale since earning an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1999. PIECE Studio, a creative venture he founded in 2006, is an agency that “engages in and with communities, organizations, activists, governments and municipalities and has run projects and workshops that promote social justice and community empowerment internationally,” primarily through the design of identities, publications and posters. 

Matthew Gaynor received his BA and MFA in graphic design from Yale University, and is currently chair of the Department of Art and Design at the University of Memphis. He has held faculty and leadership positions at University of Kansas, California State University at San Bernardino, University of Cincinnati, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Kansas State University. He also served as creative director for F+W Publications, which published HOW magazine. Gaynor has won numerous awards for his design work, which is focused on the intersection of type and image, and continues his practice of typographic design, as well as an ongoing interest in photographic portraiture.

Myra Thiessen is a researcher and senior lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and is the program coordinator of the communication design program in the Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture. She earned a PhD in typography and graphic communication at the University of Reading and a Bachelor of Design degree in communication design from the University of Alberta. She has published her research widely, especially about typography and cognition, in the journals Visible Language, Ergonomics, and The Design Journal among others, and co-edited the book The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design. 

Steven McCarthy is professor emeritus of graphic design at the University of Minnesota, where he taught for over two decades. He earned an MFA from Stanford University and a BFA from Bradley University. His book The Designer As… Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur, Curator and Collaborator: New Models for Communicating was published in 2013. McCarthy’s creative work has been in over 150 juried and invitational exhibitions, and has been awarded inclusion in the AIGA annual, the STA 100 show and in Graphis Poster. He has published in the journals Design Issues, Message, Visible Language, Design and Culture, Visual Communication, and occasionally writes for Eye magazine. In 2017 he was awarded the Minnesota Book Artist Award.

http://stevenmccarthy.design

Academic Abstract Writing Program

Thursday, June 19, 2025
10:00am – 2:00pm EDT

The online Academic Abstract Writing Program at Design Incubation offers a series of activities that will help design researchers to craft a written synopsis of their research. The outcome(s) will be a concisely written document typically expected of academic publication venues. This includes conferences, journals, grant applications, publishers, and academic organizations.

The program is designed along two tracks:

  1. The first track is for design faculty who are new to academia and want a program that will help them to navigate the academic publication arena.
  2. The second track is aimed at design faculty who have established their research agenda and activities, and would like to explore ways to broaden their scope of publication opportunities.

We are excited to announce Leslie Atzmon, Eastern Michigan University, Jess Barness, Kent State University and Dan Wong, CityTech, CUNY will be facilitating and moderating the various activities.

Agenda

Time (EDT)Activity
10:00am-11:15amPresentation on Abstracts.
Dan Wong, Jess Barness.
Abstracts Reviewed. Breakout rooms with Mentors.
Atzmon, Barness, Wong.
11:15am-12:15pmFellows Abstract Workshop
12:15-1:00pmLunch Break
1:00pm- 2:00pmAbstracts—Repurposing Research. Leslie Atzmon.
Group Consultation with Mentors. Atzmon, Barness, Wong.

Fellows

Katie Blazek
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign

Grace Hamilton
Assistant Professor
CUNY, Baruch College

Brooke Hull
Assistant Professor
Pennsylvania State University

Megan Asbeck
Assistant Professor
SUNY Brockport

Ruichao Jiang
Artist/Designer

Minoo Marasi
Graduate Student
University of Illinois Chicago

Golnoush Behmanesh
Assistant Professor
University of Mississippi

CFP: Academic Abstract Writing Program

Application Deadline: May 2, 2025

The online Academic Abstract Writing Program at Design Incubation offers a series of activities that will help design researchers to craft a written synopsis of their research. The outcome(s) will be a concisely written document typically expected of academic publication venues. This includes conferences, journals, grant applications, publishers, and academic organizations.

The program is designed along two tracks:

  1. The first track is for design faculty who are new to academia and want a program that will help them to navigate the academic publication arena.
  2. The second track is aimed at design faculty who have established their research agenda and activities, and would like to explore ways to broaden their scope of publication opportunities.

Application:

Academic Abstract Writing Workshop Program

This program is designed to facilitate design researchers in the development of their academic research abstract(s) for conferences, grant proposals, journal articles, and other publications.

The program does not guarantee abstract submissions will be accepted by the academic venues. The program is designed to improve your understanding of abstract writing, and the factors involved in developing a successful abstract submission.

Complete all required application information. Submit as much information as possible in the other fields to help us to understand your interests, goals, and challenges.

Seats are limited for this fellowship program. Upon acceptance, there is a $125 (members)/ $175 (non-members) program registration fee.

Step 1 of 2

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Name(Required)
Email(Required)
Secondary Email
Sometimes emails get spam filtered out and a secondary email helps with correspondences.
We generally do not call or text, unless it seems that our emails are not getting to you. Whenever possible, provide a telephone number that we can sms you.
Professional Title

Program Track(Required)
I am applying to the following track:
Goals
I am interested in:

Submit a short biography (250 words) describing your current position and professional research goals.
Please describe (250 words) the research project that you are considering.
Formats
Please select all the program formats in which you are interested.
Challenges
Select all that reflect your challenges.
Please add comments or other information you would like to share.
Please list and/or describe the publications, conferences, grants, organizations, venues, or types of places where you would like to submit your abstract(s).
Submit a draft of an existing abstract, or a summary proposal of the work you are doing, challenges you encounter, and goals you aim to attain.
Accepted file types: pdf, docx, doc, rtf, txt, Max. file size: 5 MB.

Submit a cv or resume.

This will help us to understand your experiences and interests and to develop the program that best suits your needs.

Accepted file types: docx, doc, pdf, txt, rtf, Max. file size: 5 MB.

Workshop on Writing an Academic Abstract

An Affiliated Society Meeting at the CAA 113th Annual Conference

Affiliated Society Meeting at the CAA 113th Annual Conference, New York City

Friday, February 14, 2025
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
New York Hilton Midtown – 2nd Floor – Murray Hill West

This is a hybrid event. Attendance is free to anyone in person. (No conference fee is required.) To attend virtually, complete the form below to receive details for the virtual login.

Join Design Incubation for a workshop on Writing an Academic Abstract. We will provide examples, recommendations, best practices, and ideas on crafting a written synopsis of your communication design research for submission to conferences, journals, invited lectures, grant and book proposals.

Please complete the form and let us know how we can facilitate your academic abstract writing efforts. This event is suited for junior faculty new to research and publication. It is also an opportunity for senior faculty to discover community and feedback on their scholarly endeavors.

Form: https://designincubation.com/abstract-writing-workshop/

CFP: 2024 Design Incubation Communication Design Educators Awards

Call for Nominations and Entries for the 2024 Design Incubation Educators Awards Competition. DEADLINE EXTENDED!

Design Incubation announces a call for nominations and entries for the 2024 awards for communication design educators in the areas of scholarship, teaching, service. The aim of the awards program is to discover and recognize new scholarship (creative work and publications), teaching, and service in our broad and varied discipline. We hope to expand the design record, promote excellence and share knowledge within the field.

Nominations and Entries

We ask colleagues and mentors to identify outstanding creative work, publications, teaching, and service being created by design educators in the field communication design and to nominate these individuals for an award. Nominations will be accepted until December 15, 2024 January 15, 2025.

Entry Guidelines

Entries will be accepted until (December 31, 2024) January 15, 2025. Nominations are not required to enter in this scholarly competition. Complete the online entry form (https://designincubation.com/design-incubation-awards-competition-entry-form/) with the following:

Title: Description of project and outcomes (not to exceed 500 words.)
Supporting Materials: (limited to 5-page medium resolution pdf of artwork; web links to websites, videos, other online resources; published documents or visual documents.)
Biography of applicant/s (150 words per applicant.)
Curriculum vitae of applicant/s.
Entry fee: $20.

2024 JURY

Steven McCarthy (Chair)
University of Minnesota

Douglas Kearney
University of Minnesota

Doug Barrett
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Basma Hamdy
Virginia Commonweath University—Qatar

Kali Nikitas
University of Southern California in Los Angeles

Douglas Kearney is an acclaimed poet, librettist, performer and book designer. His work is widely awarded and anthologized, and his book Sho was a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities where he is a McKnight Presidential Fellow. Kearney earned a BA from Howard University and an MFA from CalArts. 

https://www.douglaskearney.com

Doug Barrett is a professor of graphic design at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who has over 20 years of professional graphic design experience. His practice combines client-oriented commercial work, community-focused “design for good,” and experimental design authorship. Barrett has received an Alabama State Arts Fellowship in Design and a Sappi: Ideas That Matter grant. He has an MFA from the University of Florida.

https://www.dougbarrett.com

Basma Hamdy is a professor of graphic design at Virginia Commonwealth University–Qatar campus where she teaches across the undergraduate and graduate curricula. Her scholarship ranges from visual documentation of socio-political activism in Egypt to exploring Arabic typography and calligraphy. Hamdy has an MFA from MICA and is currently a candidate for a PhD at Leiden University and The Royal Academy of Art in The Netherlands. 

https://qatar.vcu.edu/news/our-faculty/basma-hamdy/

Kali Nikitas serves as MFA Design Academic Program Manager at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She is a former Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Northeastern University and Otis College of Art and Design. Kali served as the Chair of the design departments at MCAD, NEU, and Otis making administration her main focus. Her designs and curatorial projects have been widely awarded and published. In addition to her academic role, she is a “Curator of Moments” designing happenings and events in the creative sector. Kali received an MFA in graphic design from CalArts and a BFA in graphic design from the University of Illinois, Chicago. 

https://www.tumblr.com/kali-nikitas

Steven McCarthy is a professor emeritus of graphic design at the University of Minnesota. His scholarship has led to lectures, exhibits, publications and grant-funded research on six continents. McCarthy has published in the field’s leading academic journals and he has been in over 135 juried and invitational exhibits. He has an MFA in design from Stanford University and a BFA in art from Bradley University. 

http://stevenmccarthy.design

New Director of Peer Reviews, Chair and Director at Large

Welcoming Cat Normoyle, incoming Director of Peer Reviews, and Camila Afanador Llach as Chair, Director-at-Large

This 2024 academic year has been busy and productive at Design Incubation. We have had many activities this fall, including the Design Educators Awards, currently accepting nominations and entries until December 31, 2024. In October, we had our first fully in-person colloquium since the onset of the pandemic and our largest one to date at Boston University with four sessions and more than 20 research presentations. This year, we celebrate our 10th year with new members and ongoing development. We continue to host the series, Design Your Research Agenda (DYRA), the latest one in November. We will be publishing this episode online shortly. 

Starting this September 2024, we welcomed Cat Normoyle, Associate Professor at East Carolina University as the incoming Director of Peer Review. In spring 2025 she will be taking over this role from Camila Afanador-Llach, Associate Professor at Florida Atlantic University, who has held the position since fall 2021. 

Normoyle is a designer, writer, and educator whose research and creative activities focus on community engagement, interactive and immersive experiences, and design pedagogy. She has a strong record of contributions to design scholarship and community engagement, evidenced by publications, presentations, and grants. Notably her writing appears in articles and book chapters published by AIGA Dialectic, Design Research Society, AIGA Design Educators Community, Routledge, and others. She is a recent grant recipient of the Engagement Scholarship Consortium for her work on the project, Our Story: The LGBTQ Stories of Eastern North Carolina, which is preparing for a fall 2025 exhibition of work. She is currently working on a book project, “Community-based Practices in Action.” We are excited to welcome her as the new Director of Peer Reviews at DI. 

Afanador-Llach has made tremendous contributions to the peer review process at DI over the last 3 years. She has further developed the peer review process, ensuring the double-blind process is objective, anonymous, rigorous, and fair and that it offers the benefits of the peer review to our members by offering feedback to all who have participated in our colloquium submission process. 

Afanador-Llach will be staying on as a Chair and Director-at-Large as she segues into other DI initiatives. We would like to thank her for her three years of service as Director of Peer Review and we are excited to be working with her in new capacities.

Afanador-Llach was promoted to tenured Associate Professor at Florida Atlantic University, and is currently researching and writing about the history of graphic design in her home country Colombia. She recently completed a three-year NEH-funded project cataloging and translating metadata, developing an online resource. With her experience with metadata and from her role as DI Director of Peer Review, we hope to further the development of keyword analysis and implementation at DI.

Designing Your Research Agenda (DYRA) 4.1

Design scholars and researchers discuss various aspects of their research agendas

Friday, November 8, 2024
1:00pPM Eastern / 12:00PM Central
Virtual Event

Designing Your Research Agenda is a panel discussion and open forum for design scholars and researchers to discuss various aspects of their research agendas. We aim to open a dialog regarding multiple challenges of discovering one’s design research inquiry. Designing Your Research Agenda is an ongoing design research event series.

Register on Eventbrite

Some of the questions we will discuss with panelists include:

  • How did you determine your research agenda (high-level timeline of your career/trajectory)
  • How do you define research and why do you think it matters/for society, the field, and yourself?
  • How do your department and institution define and support the work you do?
  • How would you describe/categorize your department and institution?
  • If you were going to position your work within a category, would you say your research addresses: design theory, design history, design practice, design research (traditional graphic design, speculative design, UXUI, typography, AR, VR, creative computing, design solutions, etc.), design pedagogy, or something else?
  • What barriers (if any) exist at your institution or in the field for creating and disseminating your research?

Moderators

Jessica Barness
Kent State University

Heather Snyder Quinn
DePaul University

Biographies

Jason Alejandro

Jason Alejandro is a Puerto Rican graphic designer and Associate Professor of Graphic Design at The College of New Jersey. His academic research explores intersections of cultural identity, design history, and critical pedagogy, with a focus on how these topics shape visual communication. Alejandro is particularly interested in using graphic design to address social and cultural narratives, including underrepresented communities in design education. His work spans writing, publishing, and visual projects, including contributions to both academic and professional design discussions on identity and collaboration in design practice. He is horrified at how well ChatGPT generated this bio, even if it is somewhat generic.

Yoon Soo Lee

Yoon Soo Lee is a Professor of Art and Design. She has been teaching at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth since 2001, and also at Vermont College of Fine Arts since 2011.

Yoon Soo’s practice moves around three core areas of study: the art of pedagogy, how to work in dialogue cross-discipline, and how to create art and design that is based on self-knowledge. These investigations have led to presentations at the AIGA Educators Conference, UCDA Design Educators Conference, grants from the National Institute of Health, presentations at the Cognitive Science Society and papers such as “Functional Criticism in the Graphic Design Classroom” published in “Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal”.

Yoon Soo studied at Seoul National University where she received her BFA and MFA, and she also studied at Western Michigan University where she received her second MFA in graphic design.

D.J. Trischler

D.J. Trischler is an Assistant Professor of Communication Design for the University of Cincinnati’s Ullman School of Design in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. He teaches typography, design research methods, and an introduction to design lecture. His research addresses the “dis-placed” sentiments familiar to the contemporary human experience, experimenting with possibilities to use design to “place” people in their surrounding ecologies. Through his research, he aims to increase place attachment, a sense of community and belonging, grow neighborliness and community engagement, and ultimately strengthen quality of life and well-being. D.J.’s work in this niche originated from his graduate thesis research into Neighborhood-Centered Design.