*This site is under construction and not often updated. Find a more updated version of me at NC State’s College of Design.
I am a historian of design and material culture with a particular interest in social and political concerns in design, including environmental, labor, justice, and rights issues as they shape and are shaped by spaces and things. My book Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design traces the history of design responses to disability rights from 1945 to recent times. This project shows how the concept of “access” emerged as a value in design in this period, with consequences for the everyday lives of disabled people as well as for discourses around civil rights and design’s role in society. I am co-editor of Making Disability Modern: Design Histories, a collection of case studies of objects, buildings, and systems that reflect changing design approaches to disability from the 18th century to the present. Examples include gout “cradles” in the early U.S., prosthetics worn by workers at the Panama Canal, and perspectives on scent in relation to Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. I also contributed a study of 3-D printed prosthetics in fashion and humanitarian design. I am now working on a new project exploring care work, neurodiversity, and design.
I serve as associate professor of Design Studies at NC State’s College of Design. I am accepting students in the Doctoral Programs (Ph.D. and D.Des) programs at NC State (prioritizing design history, especially history of disability and other embodiment). I previously held the position of professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
