Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank my lead advisor, Tim Durfee, for all of the support, encouragement, and endless list of references that I will continue to draw upon in my future design work. For guiding me in navigating my topic, despite it feeling so broad and difficult to define at times. For helping me see and think about my own work from various angles, perspectives, frames, scales, and more.

I also would like to express my gratitude towards co-advisors Elise Co and Anne Burdick, Elizabeth Chin and Sam Creely for the amazing and extensive help with writing, as well as Ben Hooker, Ben Borden, Claire Evans, John Brumley, and adjunct faculty who participated in guest critiques and reviews. All of these people provided invaluable feedback throughout the huge undertaking that is thesis.

I would like to say how extremely grateful I am for my cohort peers, who I would not have made it through without, especially during this challenging remote year of learning in the time of COVID (among many other tumultuous things) - my friends, in particular Maya Friedman and Aishwarya Janwadkar for their support - all of the eleventh hour help, the encouragement we shared with each other before every presentation, along with all the comfort that came after any difficult critique or review.

Finally, I cannot understate the amount of support I continue to receive from some of the most important people in my life - my mom, who trusted me with my decision to go back to school again (even though she still doesn’t really know what I do – which is totally okay), my sister Nicole for helping me with illustrating graphics in the thesis work, and my partner Aaron, for his unending patience, for lending me another pair of hands to make things, and for managing the fort while helping me stay afloat.