Through my academic research at Rutgers University-Newark, I’ve experienced a clear intersection and productive exchange between my career focus, my role in the classroom and my responsibility to the community — through collaboration, co-building, social engagement and service learning — so I continued to investigate ways in which social contexts can be applied to the fundamentals of graphic design: image, word, message-making and the technological conditions of the medium.

One of the most important aspects of my professional development has been the collaborative process. The strategy, decision making and design process behind highly charged social issues, are more purposely founded and more democratic when it is informed by a collaborative and/or participatory process with partners, clients, audiences.