mouthoflowers_Dee

Dee is an innovator and collaborator who has partnered with students, nonprofits, and faculty to bring innovative, evidence-based spaces, events, and products to communities regionally and nationally. She has developed a participatory, evidence-based, collaborative process, called Insightful Design Thinking (Nicholas, 2024), which she has refined over 25 years of working with communities, students, non-profits, and STEAM disciplines. Her Design Health Innovation Clinic (founded in 2013) uses research to fill gaps in care and at home. She has secured over $ 2 million in federal and foundation funding as a team member, collaborator, and principal investigator. Dee is a health and human-centered innovator with over 25 years of experience in sustainability, design research, and education, a tenured associate professor, and the founding director of the MS Design program at Drexel University's Department of Architecture, Design, and Urbanism. She holds professional credentials in architecture, interior design, and sustainability, and a PhD from Antioch University's School of Leadership and Change. Dee mentors novice designers, advocates for change, and integrates scholarship, teaching, and service into innovation. Current work focuses on aging-in-place including a startup around growing fresh food, Garden Fresh Home with Biologist Dr. Shivanthi Anandan, which has two patents pending and NSF funding. Another main project is an evidence-based measure, The Mantua Creative Standard for Aging in Place (MCSAP), to retrofit spaces to support aging-in-place developed with Second Story Collective, also funded by multiple foundations, and NSF.