Kelly J. Tierney

Adjunct Lecturer in Design

Kelly J. Tierney is a strategic designer, artist and strategist. She creates meaningful participatory experiences using serious play and transdisciplinary approaches to promote generosity, solidarity, economic justice, and re-thinking the American Dream. She uses methods from social science, performance, service design, and game design to create deceptively simply interactions that are whimsical, unexpected, and at times transformational.

As an instructor she aims to help her students follow their discomfort, embrace differences as strengths, and keep asking better questions. She creates a playful class environment by bringing together fun and contemplative tools, methods, and tactics from a wide range of disciplines including theater arts, philosophy and game design.

She has over two decades of experience creating values-focused visions of the future, utilizing systems thinking and collaborative storytelling. She's led magical flash mobs on secret tours, created life changing self-discovery tools, designed games for cultural change, and helped reimagined healthcare into what is now known as Obama Care.

She began her design career as an industrial designer creating future concepts for Daimler Chrysler, Nike and IBM Research - acquiring several mechanical and design patents, and winning two iF (International Forum) design awards. And her work was featured in the book: Experience Design Concepts and Case Studies, by Bloomsbury Publishing

She has an MFA in Transdisciplinary Design from the New School's Parsons School of Design, in New York, NY, and a double major BFA in Fine Arts and Industrial Design - Transportation from The College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI.