Faculty

Profile

Patty is a design researcher and strategist, and most recently MFA Studio Director and full-time faculty in the School of Design Strategies. She holds a master of industrial design from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a BA in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis. She first began investigating the opportunities for industrial designers in postindustrial contexts during her graduate studies. Her master’s thesis work, entitled Unfold, examined methods of expressing the human, social and environmental value of mundane purchases, and went on to win the top prize at the Japan Design Foundation’s Design and Business Competition in Osaka in 2003. Her work spans exhibition design, environmental design, information design and product. Her current practice is part of a systems-oriented approach to ethical consumer products, acknowledging the complex political, social and environmental contexts along the commodity chain and offering strategies that empower stakeholders to align their essential objectives and to work towards a collective preferred future. Patty has been teaching in the product design program since 2005 and was a juror for ID Magazine’s Annual Design Review (equipment category) in 2008. She has developed frameworks for teaching historical analysis of contemporary product design and achieving empathic design outcomes.