Here at Design Incubation, 2020 has been a challenging yet productive and exciting year.  Despite the shifts to online teaching and the need to physically distance, we have continued to connect with you via virtual presentation opportunities. Also, we have been working on new resources for design faculty.
 
As we plan for a fresh start in 2021 and beyond, we continue to evolve our programming, developing new resources and events to better serve design researchers and scholars. To help us with these endeavors, we are pleased to announce we are appointing two new directors to the team. Jessica Barness will join Design Incubation as the Director of Research Initiatives and Heather Snyder Quinn will take on the role of the Director of Design Futures. Please join us in welcoming Jessica and Heather to the Design Incubation Leadership Team.
                                                                   
Jessica Barness is an Associate Professor in the School of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University. She is both a scholar and practitioner; her work has been published in internationally recognized journals. Recently, Jessica spearheaded the development of a pair of white papers, which examine the role of peer review in design research and publishing. Jessica will continue to work with the Design Incubation Leadership Team on research-related initiatives and new programming, which will examine how design faculty can approach writing from idea through to publication.
 
Heather Snyder-Quinn is an Assistant Professor of Design in The College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University. Her work focuses on the future ethics of emerging technology, including augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things. Heather was the host of Design Incubation’s Affiliated Society meeting at the College Art Association’s 2020 annual conference inviting twelve local design organizations in Chicago to participate in a round table and Q&A. She hosted a Design Incubation Colloquium at DePaul in 2019, which coincided with Chicago Design Week. We look forward to working with Heather to produce events and content focused on emerging technologies and their role in design futures.