Dr. Kang (b. 1986) is an Assistant Professor at UW-Madison’s School of Human Ecology and leads The Design Civics Lab. She is a humanistic interdisciplinary researcher, scholar and writer whose work sits at the intersection of design studies, feminist science and technology studies (STS), and urban humanities. Through community-engaged research, Dr. Kang’s work examines the politics of public participation and public memory in the era of big tech and sustainability transitions. Dr. Kang frames design as a site to critically reflect on the ways we construct, organize, and standardize public life. She uses archival, ethnographic, participatory, and arts-based methods.

Selected projects include a) manuscript on design’s role in shaping the acceleration of data center proposals , b) oral history project that documents the community’s response to hyperscale data center development across Wisconsin, and c) community archive that preserves artifacts created to support resident-led activism that aims to hold big tech accountable. Additionally, Dr. Kang is co-leading an effort to develop a community benefits process that accounts for Wisconsin-based residents in large scale development projects.

Dr. Kang’s primary affiliation is with the Design Studies Dept., and her secondary affiliation is with the Civil Society and Community Studies Dept. at SoHE. She is also a member of the Wisconsin RISE Initiative, Global Human Ecology Network, UW-Madison’s Data Center Working Group, and faculty affiliate at the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies.

Through a humanistic social science approach, Dr. Kang develops three types of tools through her work: 1) conceptual, 2) analytical, and 3) practical. This informs industry standards, policies, practice, and pedagogy.

Through The Design Civics Lab, Dr. Kang leads an interdisciplinary group that is looking at the implications of design for the construction and organization of civic life. Through empirical, conceptual and practice-based research, the lab aims to bridge resident-led efforts and systems-level decision making processes to instigate grounded, people-led structural change. (site + logo forthcoming)

Current student collaborators include: Bonbon Yang (Ph.D. advisee; HCI and design doctoral student), Allison Breitzmann (Summer PA; Community & Organizational Development + PoliSci Undergrad); Kayla Johnson (Summer Design Consultant; Design Studies Undergrad) [more soon]

Past: Emily Burke (Summer PA; sociology doctoral student), and Areyana Proctor (Summer PA; communication studies doctoral student).

This portfolio builds upon 12+ years of award-winning work as an independent design researcher, strategist, and advisor, where Dr. Kang led community-centered projects that applied co-design methods to urban planning, policy-making, and digital service delivery processes. This took place at the municipal, state, congressional, and federal levels. She is the recipient of the Route Fifty Navigator Award and listed in the NextGen10 and 40Under40 lists for CSQ magazine.

Selected former collaborators include Vera Institute of Justice, Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities + Results for America, New Jersey (state) Office of Innovation, and New York (state) Department of Health, in addition to a one-year term with the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders under the Obama Administration.

Dr. Kang's previous academic appointments include NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Pratt Institute, and School of Visual Art.

Dr. Kang obtained 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.

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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.

Copyright © 2025 Esther Y. Kang. All rights reserved.

Portrait taken by Los Angeles based photographer, Ann Cutting.

& News:

  • Publication In Press. Unsettling Boundaries: Accounting for Social Histories in Participatory Design. Temes de Disseny. (Journal Article) Publication Date: Summer 2026

  • Publication In Press. The Politics of Place-based Design: An Inquiry into a Worldbuilding Practice. Urban Humanities 2: An (Un)volume of Place, Pedagogy, and Practice. (Book Chapter). Publication Date: Summer 2026. Publisher: Routledge.

  • Presentation Accepted to the Urban Humanities (Un)conference. St. Louis, MO. Fall 2025

  • Workshop Accepted to the Design Justice Symposium. Minneapolis, MN. Fall 2025

  • Talk Invited Guest Lecturer at NYU. Technology, Culture and Society Dept. Spring 2025

  • Talk Invited to be part of a speaker series at UCLA’s Information Studies School. Winter 2024.

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