Hello fellow studio mates!

I’m Ashley, and I’m delighted to be working with you all. Previously, I have worked in various software engineering, international development, and policy roles, and have designed technologies, initiatives, and policies related to issues such as human rights, labor rights, and youth empowerment. As a doctoral student, I spend a lot of time hanging out with and studying young people and participatory media.

Like a few others here, I’m coming into class without a specific community partner in mind, and I’m hoping to collaborate with someone who has an existing relationship. Because of my multidisciplinary background, I often find myself working at the interfaces — for example, between engineers, designers, and social scientists.

I expect my design process to be messy and full of surprises. I often lead design thinking workshops for other students, and I find it rewarding to help myself and others make new discoveries and connections between people and ideas during the design process. There will likely be moments when things aren’t going as planned, and we feel stuck, but I hope to continue learning how to ground the design process in the community of people I’m working with. My past experience has taught me that interventions that are designed by outsiders and delivered to a community almost always fail. That’s why I appreciate messiness that comes with commitment to designing with the community.