Mitzi Vernon, IDSA

Dean, College of Design, University of Kentucky Mitzi Vernon, IDSA, is dean of the College of Design at the University of Kentucky (UK), where her work includes new strategic planning involving partnerships with the UK Center for Applied Research (CAER) Vernon serves as a member of the CAER Advisory Board and of the six healthcare colleges at UK, with a primary focus on a collaborative medical product design degree program. She’s taking the lead in trying to start ID undergraduate and graduate programs at the university. Prior to the UK position, Vernon was professor of industrial design at Virginia Tech. Her career interests include the public understanding of science and the pedagogy of form. She was a CreativeMornings speaker in April 2017, delivering “Form in Life” in Lexington, KY—and one of the inaugural speakers for TEDx Virginia Tech, delivering “Mapping the Invisible” in 2012.

Dean, College of Design, University of Kentucky

Mitzi Vernon, IDSA, is dean of the College of Design at the University of Kentucky (UK), where her work includes new strategic planning involving partnerships with the UK Center for Applied Research (CAER)

Vernon serves as a member of the CAER Advisory Board and of the six healthcare colleges at UK, with a primary focus on a collaborative medical product design degree program. She’s taking the lead in trying to start ID undergraduate and graduate programs at the university.

Prior to the UK position, Vernon was professor of industrial design at Virginia Tech. Her career interests include the public understanding of science and the pedagogy of form. She was a CreativeMornings speaker in April 2017, delivering “Form in Life” in Lexington, KY—and one of the inaugural speakers for TEDx Virginia Tech, delivering “Mapping the Invisible” in 2012.

Activities for Mitzi

Speaker | Medical Design Deep Dive | 2018

TEACHING THE FUTURE: Healthcare Designers

Daily, we witness the changing definition and scope of healthcare challenges and their effective and sustainable solutions at the product and service levels. We are deluged with the phrase “design thinking” within the disciplines of design and among the general public.

In tandem are the terms interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, transdisciplinary and collaboration—commonplace adjectives for new and old initiatives. What is the intersection of these phenomena in design education? As a University City—a newly defined category of city that has a diversified economy around a major research university—Lexington and the University of Kentucky are well-positioned for a 21^stcentury program in product design with an emphasis on healthcare.

Mitzi Vernon, IDSA, dean of the College of Design at the University of Kentucky, explores the structure of a modern curriculum that invests in collaborative connections—mining the hidden potential across campus. She’ll also address a concept of stackable and flexible curricular units for the student of the future.

IDSA Medical Conference 2018 chair Bryce Rutter discusses speaker Mitzi Vernon.