2017 Summer Open House

This summer our students are tackling complex and impactful issues – from improving care for people with sickle cell disease to breaking down language barriers within the legal system.

Join us for an evening cocktail reception; short presentations featuring students and alumnus Sarah Ekblad, senior design researcher at IA Collaborative; and information on how you can join our graduate program. We welcome prospective students and the curious to learn more about the research projects IIT Institute of Design students and faculty have been exploring this summer including:

Communicating Legal Rights Across Languages

Every year across the United States, non-English speaking people are arrested and cannot understand the Miranda warning. This can result in the arrested person unknowingly waiving their rights. Students Moire Corcoran (MDes + MBA 2019) and Ignacio Martinez (MDes 2018) are leading a team of computer science and law students to create a solution for communicating legal rights in multiple languages.

Improving Sickle Cell Care

The ISAAC project (Improving Sickle cell care in Adults and Adolescents in Chicago), part of ID’s Center for Collaborative Healthcare Design, focuses on improving care for those living with sickle cell anemia. Sarah Braunstein (MDes 2018) is part of a design team working to encourage long-term care and to find ways for patients to better manage acute pain episodes.

The Cost of Pregnancy

Archana Belani (MDes 2018) and Sonia Lala (MDes 2019) are spending the summer developing a communication tool to facilitate cost-of-care conversations between clinicians and patients. Their primary goal is to improve the transparency of out-of-pocket costs likely to be incurred by pregnant women. This project is also part of ID’s Center for Collaborative Healthcare Design.

Alumnus Sarah Ekblad, Senior Design Researcher at IA Collaborative

Sarah Ekblad (MDes 2014) specializes in planning and implementing qualitative research methods and translating users’ needs into actionable design solutions. Sarah is currently a senior design researcher at IA Collaborative, a global design and innovation consultancy in Chicago. In this position, she has defined new opportunities for innovation across a variety of industries including healthcare, hospitality, and logistics.  

Prior to attending ID, Sarah earned a Bachelors of Science in architecture from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She came to ID to leverage her background in spatial design and systems-level thinking and to learn new methods for solving complex problems. While at ID, she tackled a variety of challenges including disease prevention in developing countries, healthcare infrastructure in India, and the aging population. 

Questions? Email design@id.iit.edu or call 312-595-4900.