Making things and making makers
Creative professionals across domains get good by noticing. Noticing is the start of perception, and perception is a sensory logic puzzle that leads to a guiding design point of view, or taste. Taste is both sensation and point of view: the first is unconscious, the second is trainable through structured observation, vocabulary, and frameworks. I study how experts build it and design systems that make it teachable: sensory research and design that reveals product and education opportunities, research on creative judgment, institutions built to teach design, and products that show these principles in practice.
Current projects: finishing Flavor Fluency (Penguin Group, forthcoming) · growing work from NCEAS residency · teaching at Dartmouth · establishing a new lab and program
Forthcoming
Flavor Fluency
Penguin Group · forthcoming
My forthcoming book introduces the first notation system for flavor perception. More →
Design at Dartmouth
Design at Dartmouth is expanding
Director, Design Initiative at Dartmouth · 2025–present
Dartmouth’s home for design as a liberal art is growing: a new website, new courses, a research program, labs, a making studio, a student fellowship, a gallery of student work, and a remote designer residency program. design.dartmouth.edu →
Sensory Studio
Sensory art as a form of science communication — exhibitions and installations that reveal invisible patterns in ecology, chemistry, and emotion through forests you can taste, ecologies you can smell, notation systems you can combine, and feelings you can eat.
Taste the Fruit of Our Understory
Edible data story · Society of Sensory Professionals · 2026
The Shape of Smell
Card game and smell notation · Society of Sensory Professionals, Louisville · October 2026
Taste the Changing Forest
ICA Boston · November 2025
Smell the Changing Forest
ICA Boston · November 2025
Taste the Changing Safety
Edible data story · Curio Spice × Women for Afghan Women · 2026
Chef League
iOS App · 2019–present
Taste Cartographies
NCEAS, UC Santa Barbara · 2025
Beneath the Surface
In development
Sensory Composition Project
Umbria Art Residency, Italy · 2014–2015
Feelings for Dinner
MIT + Study Restaurant · 2015
Flavor Fluency Film Series
How Chefs Become Fluent in Flavor · 2017
Creative Process Research
How experts learn to frame problems, make creative decisions, and judge their own work — research that turns creativity, judgment, and taste into something you can measure and design with.
The Problem Genome
problemgenome.com · Harvard 2013 · Dartmouth 2025–present
Designer Decisions
IDEO & JWT · 11 offices · 6 continents
Towards Evidence-Based Design and Innovation Education
Harvard · MIT · Cambridge · 2011–present
500 Problems
Problem Genome Project · 2026
Visualizing Design Taste
Data Visualization · 2013–present
100 Ways of Seeing
Harvard SEAS · 2015–2021
Institution Building
Innovative programs and degrees built to train the next generation of designers and builders: the Design Initiative at Dartmouth, first joint master’s across RISD and Brown, a decade of building design and engineering programs and the MS+MBA program at Harvard
Design Initiative at Dartmouth
Dartmouth · 2025–present
Rhode Island School of Design + Brown University Joint MA Program
RISD + Brown · 2021–2025
Harvard Design + Engineering Programs
Harvard SEAS · 2011–2021
Cultural Entrepreneurship in NYC
Harvard SEAS + HBS · 2013–2014
Designing Innovation
Speaking & Workshops
Courses
Courses built from scratch, on product design, innovation practice, algorithm design, data visualization for the public, and the future of work.
Design Survivor
Harvard · 2013–2021 · Dartmouth · 2026+
Innovators’ Practice
ES21 · Harvard · 2012–2021
Integrated Design
ES 285 · Harvard SEAS + HBS · 2018–2021
Human-Centered Algorithm Design
ES91R · Harvard SEAS · Fall 2017
Interactive Visualizations of Our City
Museum of Science / IEEE / NASA · 2024
Digital Nomads and the Future of Work
Harvard · 2015–2018
Product Design Practice
Other product design projects from a sidewalk robot, a luxury group’s sustainability strategy, a pandemic relief platform, the Desirability Lab’s client research and more...
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Education
Postdoc MIT · Visiting Scholar Stanford · PhD Univ of Cambridge · MPhil Univ of Cape Town · Diplomado PUC Chile · BS & BA ASU Barrett Honors College
Recognition
Thinkers50 Emerging Thinker · Harvard Crimson Top 15 Professor · Artist in Residence, National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis · Vermont Studio Center Residency · Fulbright Scholar (Spain)
Clients
Gucci · Kering · Uber · IKEA · Disney · Microsoft · Google · Intel · IDEO · General Mills · Bosch · PWC · Swarovski · Tesco · SAB Miller · Dandelion · Expedia
Press
CNN · Wall Street Journal · Boston Magazine · Forbes · Kinfolk Magazine · VentureBeat · Independent · Outside · Adweek · Fortune · HBR