Dr. Kang (b. 1986 in Detroit, MI) is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Design Studies at UW-Madison's School of Human Ecology (SoHE). Her primary affiliation is with the Design Studies Dept, and her secondary affiliation is with the Civil Society and Community Studies Department at SoHE. Dr. Kang is also a member of the Wisconsin RISE Initiative, Global Human Ecology Network, and faculty affiliate at the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies. In this capacity, she focuses on conducting research, advising graduate students, and teaching in the Design, Innovation, and Society (DIS) program.

Dr. Kang’s research looks at the meaning of participation in the shifting landscape of planning and policy processes, and locates this work in these subfields of design: civic design, social design, and participatory design. This work addresses two areas of focus: (1) the relationship between agency, interconnectedness and mobility, and (2) ethics in design practice, praxis, and analysis in the era of big tech and AI. Through an interdisciplinary approach, Dr. Kang integrates design studies, critical human-computer interaction (HCI), urban humanities, critical geography, and feminist science and technology studies (STS) into this work. The objective is to develop theoretical, methodological, pedagogical and practical frameworks for design, HCI and STS communities of scholarship and practice.

Two recent projects include: (1) outlining the political role of civic designers in government and the methodological implications of their working conditions. This work may expand by integrating organizational psychology, decision science, and infrastructure studies. (2) tracing the politics of participation in place-based efforts from the perspectives of working communities. Forthcoming work: (1) examine the ethical implications of design’s role, relationship and positionality in urban renewal projects in the era of big tech, AI and the innovation economy. (2) reconceptualize design’s relationship to systems-thinking, ecological-thinking, and locally-driven frameworks as a situated practice in sociotechnical and sociopolitical contexts.

Through an interdisciplinary and humanities-based approach, Dr. Kang develops three types of tools through her work: 1) conceptual, 2) analysis, and 3) praxis. This informs industry standards, policies, practice, and pedagogy. Current updates can be found here.

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).

This work builds upon Dr. Kang’s award-winning work as an independent Design Researcher for ten years, where she led projects that applied co-design practices to urban planning, policy-making, and digital service delivery processes in novel and cutting edge ways. This scope of work encompassed cross-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary, and trans-disciplinary initiatives at the city, state, congressional, and federal levels, including a one year term at a White House Initiative under the Obama Administration as the inaugural Designer-in-Residence.

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

Dr. Kang earned her Ph.D. in Design from Carnegie Mellon University, MA in social design from Maryland Institute College of Art, BFA with concentrations in photography and art theory from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Feel free to reach out to chat about collaboration, speaking opportunities, and generally these works: eykang2@wisc.edu

*Note: The links on the page are intended to provide field-specific or industry-specific definitions. Organizations that I collaborated with are listed in the text above.