About
Dee is an innovator and collaborator who has partnered with students, nonprofits, and faculty to bring innovative, evidence-based spaces, events, and products to communities regionally and nationally. She has developed a participatory, evidence-based, collaborative process, called Insightful Design Thinking (Nicholas, 2024), which she has refined over 25 years of working with communities, students, non-profits, and STEAM disciplines. Her Design Health Innovation Clinic (founded in 2013) uses research to fill gaps in care and at home. She has secured over $ 2 million in federal and foundation funding as a team member, collaborator, and principal investigator. Dee is a health and human-centered innovator with over 25 years of experience in sustainability, design research, and education, a tenured associate professor, and the founding director of the MS Design program at Drexel University's Department of Architecture, Design, and Urbanism. She holds professional credentials in architecture, interior design, and sustainability, and a PhD from Antioch University's School of Leadership and Change. Dee mentors novice designers, advocates for change, and integrates scholarship, teaching, and service into innovation. Current work focuses on aging-in-place including a startup around growing fresh food, Garden Fresh Home with Biologist Dr. Shivanthi Anandan, which has two patents pending and NSF funding. Another main project is an evidence-based measure, The Mantua Creative Standard for Aging in Place (MCSAP), to retrofit spaces to support aging-in-place developed with Second Story Collective, also funded by multiple foundations, and NSF.
As Founding Director of the MS Design Program at Drexel University in Philadelphia she has convened a yearly innovation symposium. Next year the symposium will focus on celebrating the programs' tenth year and the 40+ successful alumni across sectors including health, fashion, service design, and finance. Dee also oversees the Sustainability in the Built Environment Minor and holds a BARCH from Carnegie Mellon, an MFA from The University of the Arts, and a Social Science Ph.D. from Antioch University. Her work as a mentor, researcher, teacher, and colleague is primarily concerned with the translational, well-being possibilities within our environments through bio design, evidence-based design, creative co-design, entrepreneurship and community engaged practice.
In 2022 Dee received the AIA Upjohn Prize, in 2024 she was awarded the Drexel Provosts Award for Pedagogical Innovation. Dee has funded over 32 students work in her lab. Dee and her students and alumni exhibit, and present, research works nationally and internationally including Canada, Switzerland, Australia, Europe, the Midwest, and the East Coast. Dee’s work is presented in National, and International, Journals including The Design Journal, Enquiry: The ARCC Journal for Architectural Research, IJDL, The Plan Journal, and ii Journal: international journal of interior architecture + spatial design. With 26 years of practice and Higher Ed. experience, including as a small business owner, Dee collaborates with researchers from Biology, Public Health, Epidemiology, Education, Chemistry, Computing, and Psychology on her work which draws students from across the university and at all levels. Partners in her work include The Farnese Symposium, Bancroft, Penn Medicine, The Autism Institute, Domestic Violence Centers of Chester County, The Alliance of Non-Profit Care Providers, Fabric Health, IMPACT Services, NSF ICorps, FAIMER, St Christophers, Second Story Collective, RHD, Agewell Collaboratory, and People’s Emergency Center.