DePaul School of Design & IIT Institute of Design welcome Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel

About this Event

SPOTLIGHT ON BLACK DESIGNERS

A talk and workshop co-hosted by DePaul University School of Design and IIT Institute of Design in celebration of Black History Month

Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel: Design Thinking and Speculative Futures

TALK

Can speculation about the future provide a platform for agency and empowerment of oppressed individuals? In this presentation, Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel, will share how design curriculum can at times be unintentionally exclusive. She will then share several experiments in creating inclusive design curricula that add utopia, speculation and super heroism to design in different contexts. The work is grounded in the principles of critical pedagogy, design thinking and Critical Utopian Action Research, a framework in which people critique where they are, dream about the future they want and figure out how they want to get there. Focus on the future helped the stakeholders to visualize their desired futures and to create action to achieve their goals. The experiences demonstrate how dreaming about the future can create an inclusive design environment that inspires communities of color and be a tool for the liberation of oppressed people.

ABOUT LESLEY-ANN NOEL

As the Associate Director for Design Thinking for Social Impact and Professor of Practice, Lesley-Ann Noel teaches design thinking courses for the Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship Minor and is building Taylor’s capacity for design thinking education through facilitations, consultations, and trainings.

Before joining Taylor, Noel was part of the 2018-2019 Ocean Design Teaching Fellowship, a cohort of fellows that brought deep experience in design, ocean science and international policy. The Ocean Design Teaching Fellow program is co-hosted with the Stanford d.school, where she also served as a lecturer. In her professional practice, she draws on the fields of design, anthropology, business and education to create product development and business strategy with stakeholders. Her research practice is guided by an emancipatory philosophy. Noel focuses on developing design curriculum for non-traditional audiences and promoting the work of designers outside of Europe and North America. She has exhibited work at design exhibitions in Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Brazil, Germany, France and the USA. She has presented peer-reviewed papers at design conferences in the Caribbean, the US, the UK and India.

Noel completed her Ph.D. in Design at North Carolina State University in 2018. Her Ph.D. research focused on design thinking at a rural primary school in Trinidad and Tobago. She also holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of the West Indies and a bacharelado (equivalent to bachelor’s degree) in industrial design from Universidade Federal do Paraná. Lesley-Ann is a former Fulbright Scholar and a lecturer at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus in Trinidad and Tobago.