Industrial design program hires new clinical assistant professor

The Design School at Arizona State University welcomes Swati Piparsania, who will join the faculty as a clinical assistant professor in the industrial design program.

Piparsania joins the school after a two-year stint as an Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design Teaching Fellow at Pratt Institute where she taught experimental and critical design. Her research and teaching endeavors have sought to expand the narrow definition of design theory, especially utilizing non-Eurocentric examples of community work and social justice as a frame to understand practice as developing theory and analysis.

Piparsania’s background in art, design and community-based practice influences her own design philosophy that she said she is excited to share with students at ASU.

“I believe a lot in working with one’s own intuition,” Piparsania said. “It is something that builds itself constantly when we engage in it, almost like any other skill. The more we practice, the more we learn about it. I also believe this would bring the depth of care which we often miss in student’s work or in general design education.”

A native of Bhilai, a city in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, Piparsania completed her undergraduate studies at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore. She received her Master of Fine Arts in 3D design from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

“I am super excited to be teaching at an institution like ASU,” she said. “It almost feels like a small world in itself. All my education was in very small schools, with 100 to 400 peers each, and it makes me so happy to think about working alongside so many intellectuals from different fields here.”

Outside of teaching and research, Piparsania enjoys playing music and dancing, both solo and with friends, as a means to recharge her creative energy.