Portrait of Esther Y Kang, Professor at UW-Madison. Photographer is Ann Cutting.

Writer. Designer. Artist. Researcher. Educator.

Dr. Kang is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison’s (UW-Madison) School of Human Ecology (SoHE). Her primary affiliation is with the Design Studies dept. and secondary affiliation is with the Civil Society and Community Studies dept. She is also a member of the Wisconsin RISE Initiative, Global Human Ecology Network, faculty affiliate at the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies, and 25-26 Morgridge Fellow at the Morgridge Center for Public Service.

Dr. Kang is a feminist creative, researcher, and mentor of design — examining, practicing, and teaching with a humanistic, critical, and social science orientation. Her work departs from the position that all design is situated & all design is political, and poses the question therefore, how do we design [social infrastructure] for all in a manner that preserves individual dignity?

Current student collaborators include: Bonbon Yang (Ph.D. advisee; HCI and design doctoral student), Emily Burke (Summer PA; sociology doctoral student), and Areyana Proctor (Summer PA; communication studies doctoral student).

Her interdisciplinary scholarship builds upon over a decade of practice, committed to cross-sector collaborations, transdisciplinary work, and interdisciplinary webs of thought. Selected former collaborators include Vera Institute of Justice, New Jersey Office of Innovation and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (Under the Obama Administration). List of collaborators can be found here.

Dr. Kang was born in Detroit, MI (1986) and grew up in Dallas, TX and Los Angeles, CA. She currently resides in Madison, WI — her 12th city to call home. Dr. Kang earned her Ph.D. in Design from Carnegie Mellon University, MA in social design from Maryland Institute College of Art, and BFA with concentrations in photography and art theory from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

For prospective PhD students: Dr. Kang welcomes emerging scholars interested in studying: 1) the impact of design in sociotechnical, sociopolitical, or sociocultural contexts, 2) the practice of design through a systems-thinking, community-centered, and place-based approach, or 3) the relationship between design, community engagement, and city development in the era of big tech and sustainability transitions. Dr. Kang is generally interested in working with interdisciplinary design and feminist STS scholars with a humanist or critical orientation.

Feel free to reach out anytime: eykang2 [at] wisc [dot] edu.