My work is an ongoing conversation between design, psychology, and technology. And I've always liked to make art in my free time. Thanks for taking a look around.
Contact
Social Links
Twitter: @bethaltringer
Faculty Pages
Brown University Professor of Practice Bio
Harvard University Berkman Klein Center Faculty Associate Bio
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Faculty Associate Page
Faculty Office
Executive Director MADE Program
Office Address: Barus & Holley Building, 220 / Providence, RI
Emails: bae[at]brown.edu & bae[at]risd.edu
Download Academic (long) CV
Design Firm
Ames Studio: http://ames.studio
Blog: https://desirabilitylab.com/
Office Address: Remote these days and in the process of transitioning to our new home
Emails: ba[at]desirabilitylab.com, b[at]ames.studio
Professor & Design Practice Bios
[last updated Oct 2022]
Professor Bio
Beth Ames Altringer Eagle is a designer, developer, artist, and Professor of Design Engineering at Brown University and The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She leads their joint Master of Arts in Design Engineering (MADE) program. Prior to MADE, she spent 10 years as faculty at Harvard, where she developed design, innovation, and entrepreneurship courses at Harvard's engineering school, and helped them develop joint programs with the GSD (MDE) and HBS (MSMBA). An architect by training, Altringer Eagle started her practice in sustainable design in 2006. She learned through experience that complex sustainability projects require multi-stakeholder collaboration skills that are not taught in school, so she spent several years as an embedded researcher inside the world's leading collaborative design firm, IDEO, with the hopes of later developing courses to fill this gap. While finishing her PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2011, she co-developed the 2025 sustainability strategy for Kering (the luxury conglomerate that owns Gucci, Saint Laurent, McQueen, etc.). This initiative continues today, and helped Kering become one of the 10 most sustainable companies worldwide. She has since cross-trained in product design, UX, coding, graphic design, design research, game design, and digital arts, and counts IKEA, Uber, Diageo, Disney, Expedia, Microsoft, Bosch and General Mills as clients. In 2015, Beth was on the team that patented Gita, Piaggio’s award-winning autonomous carrier robot. In 2019, she developed Chef League, the first educational cooking game for learning to 'freestyle' with flavors without a recipe. Today, she works with artists and technologists on projects designed to increase creative expression, meaning, social joy, and resilience. She likes to make art in her free time.Designer Bio
My focus is on designing experiences and technologies that go beyond making life easy. Convenience by itself is a dull goal for life. I'm interested in design and technology that augments human learning and our capacity to experience regular moments of creativity, meaning and social joy.
A few highlights: