Engaging remote executive learners
I had the great privilege of working alongside the amazing Sari Gluckin, ID professor and founder of Wishful Thinking, to help create a sticky learning playbook for students in ID Academy. Our challenge was to create a set of tools that would allow ID professors to create engaging remote classes for their students, most of whom are busy executives with many demands on their time. I contributed the “5 E” learning framework to structure the playbook, provided 15+ distinct learning strategies, researched additional activities and provided weekly consultation and feedback to Sari. I also provided the idea to use the “Made to Stick” book by Chip and Dan Heath as well as suggested the use of Universal Design for Learning principles. The impact of this project was to create ID Academy’s first-ever tool for deeper engagement in remote learning; it’s a project that has relevance for remote learners everywhere.
My role: Educational consultant
Time: 6 weeks, Summer 2022
Designing an immersive climate future
How will it feel to live in a climate change future? What new social systems will emerge as climate migration becomes more of a reality in the United States? How do pervasive dystopian narratives about climate change disempower us?
To explore these questions, my team and I created an immersive scenario set in a possible climate change future. The scenario took place 300 seasons after ‘The Great Turning’ of 2050, when we imagined that U.S. society would have just experienced catastrophic social collapse due to compounding climate disasters. In this imagined future, the former United States is now known as Clovaland and due to climate change, there are very few areas in Clovaland where it’s safe to live year round. As a result, most Americans are now members of nomadic communities who travel from place to place throughout the year.
Our scenario immersed 25 participants in a 30 minute graduation ceremony of one of these nomadic groups and explored how ritual, strong individual relationships and human adaptability can exist within the larger context of environmental devastation. Participants reflected that being immersed in this speculative future made them think about climate change in a more nuanced, somatic and possibility-oriented way.
Read more about the project here.
My role: Speculative designer and facilitator
Team: Ana Dasgupta, Emery Donovan, Elizabeth Graff, Amy Zasadzinski
Time: 15 weeks, Fall 2022
Attracting first-time insurance buyers
In the Spring of 2023, my teammates and I were fortunate to be one of the 10 teams selected to compete in the finals of the Rotman Design Challenge. The client was Sun Life, a global insurance company founded in 1865. Our challenge was to propose a design solution that would allow Sunlife to attract and maintain younger, first-time insurance buyers. After conducting primary and secondary research, we realized there was huge untapped opportunity to provide services for the growing group of international students living in Canada. In response, we created a proposal for Sunbridge, an online mental health service specifically for international students living in Canada. By expanding outside of traditional insurance offerings, we argued that Sun Life could meet a crucial social need as well as retain a new set of loyal customers. My role in the project was to lead design research, project management, synthesis and storytelling efforts. See our final deck here.
My role: Design researcher + strategist
Team: Sandhini Ghodeshwar, Nigencia James, Grace Parks-Hall, Emery Donovan
Time: 12 weeks, Spring 2023