Hello…

I am an anthropologist, a designer, and an educator who has been engaged in research for several years in academia and in industry. My experiences with these disciplines in a variety of environments has made me think of design as a mediating force that translates technology into products and services for people, and in the process it influences human culture. As designers and researchers, we are constantly trying to understand the technical and the social, the material and the cultural, the object and the human. Our task should be to ensure that everything we create and put into the world should be done with care, not only for people but for everything that inhabits the planet.

Leadership

I have served in leadership roles in academia and in industry, managing teams of designers and researchers as well as faculty and students. And the projects I have led have involved a broad range of disciplines including (in addition to design and UX research) business, sustainability, engineering, biology, and product management.

At the university, I have kept myself involved with industry through corporate sponsored projects on new product design and development. And while in industry, I have managed research projects with universities. I find myself comfortable in both environments and truly enjoy projects that are informed by the unique qualities of academia and industry. 

Dean, College of Design, University of Minnesota
September 2023 - present

Staff UX Researcher, Google
Jan 2018 - Mar 2023

Co-Director, The Biomimicry Center
Mar 2014 - Dec 2017

Director, InnovationSpace, ASU
Apr 2005 - Dec 2017

Professor, Industrial Design, ASU
Aug 2000 - Dec 2018

Department Head, Industrial Design, ITT Technical Institute
Sep 1994 - Jun 2000

Education

Doctor of Philosophy, Sociocultural Anthropology (PhD), University College London, London, UK
May 2022

Master of Arts, Industrial Design (MA), The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Dec 1993

Master of Arts, Industrial Design (MDes) Industrial Design Centre, Powai, India
Jan 1986

Bachelor of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering (BE), Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, India
Dec 1983

Honors & Special Appointments

Technical Advisor, Zero Waste Scotland
Zero Waste Scotland exists to lead Scotland to use products and resources responsibly, focusing on where we can have the greatest impact on climate change. 

Advisory Board Member, Institute for Research in Sensing, University of Cincinnati
The Institute for Research in Sensing (IRiS) is an interdisciplinary research institute focused on novel routes to innovation in sensing research and sensor technology development through purposeful integration of STEM and non-STEM perspectives