RESEARCH & SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainability is something that has become a core part of my teaching, research and professional development over the past fifteen years. It is intricately tied to the field of professional design, and, in fact, will drive the field of design in the next half century. As a member of a professional community that is tied daily to the process of creation and development, where material selection and use is a constant part of that process, it is integral and obligatory for me to evaluate the impact of my creative process on the natural system and the natural system’s influence on design. It is also critical that I am not only aware of this impact, but take a proactive role in providing solutions toward a more positive and climate neutral environmental impact. In addition to my roles as a design professional, as an educator, I am acutely aware of the opportunity that I have to inform young and emerging citizens about their impacts and how their generation can be the first to break the cycle of overconsumption and begin to grasp the importance of a holistic and interconnected approach to our existence, since the industrial revolution.
Some of the research topics that I'm currently working on include, analysis of environmental organizations' carbon footprints in advertising and promotions, the impact of biomimic marketing and the value and use of water refill stations in public spaces to reduce consumption and waste of plastic water bottles, and effective techniques for communicating climate change visually.
I try to practice what I preach in the classroom at home as currently my residence is a National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Certified Wildlife Habitat and integrates sustainable practices daily.
Do You See our STARS Now? Making an Institution's STARS Report More Visible & Relevant to Community Via Student Infographics (Poster at Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education Annual Conference, Baltimore, MD, 2016)
Less Energy & More Efficient Design with a Pro-Social Framework (Poster at NCSE’s 15th National Conference and Global Forum on Science, Policy and the Environment: Energy and Climate Change, Washington, DC 2015)
Blending Three Different Models for Interdisciplinary Sustainability: Local Partnerships, Service-Learning and Faculty Workshops (Poster at IARU Sustainability Science Congress, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2014)
Analysis of Visual Delivery, Resources and Rhetoric Changes by Key Environmental Organizations Impacted from the Field of Graphic Design in a “Post-Inconvenient Truth” Era (Poster at Fourth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts and Responses, Seattle, WA 2012)
“Visualizing” Water Using Design and Biomimic Marketing For Water Refill Stations (Poster at Water in the World: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Access and Sustainability Conference, Winthrop University, SC, 2015, and Presentation at Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education Annual Conference, Minneapolis, MN, 2015)
A collection of photographs from my residence in Tennessee
posters created for bio mimic marketing study