Design Thinking 101

Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel is the Associate Director for Design Thinking for Social Impact and a professor of practice at Tulane University, and an Afro-Caribbean designer who focuses on critical emancipatory design thinking. We talk about power issues and design, participatory design, working with community partners, teaching design, thinking in ways that help students reflect on difference, and the Designer's Critical Alphabet.     Show Summary   Lesley’s passion for design started in middle school, and by the time she graduated from high school, she was looking for a place to continue her design studies. She ended up in Brazil, where she spent a year studying graphic design and five years in industrial design before returning to Trinidad, where she worked as a design consultant and taught at the University of the West Indies.   After coming to the U.S. to get her Ph.D. at North Carolina State University, she spent a year teaching at Stanford’s d.School before moving on to her current position at Tulane University