Rachel Abrams

Rachel Abrams is the Principal of Turnstone Consulting, New York. Founded in 2006, Turnstone makes organizations, public places and digital spaces legible, visible, navigable, to improve civil society by design. She served as special advisor to Walk NYC, the Department of Transportation’s citywide way-finding program, co-edited Roads Forward, a seminal study on New York’s taxi services, and was graphic facilitator to the United Nations’ 70th General Assembly Sustainable Development Summit.

As a Board member of AIGA New York, she conceived its Design/Relief response to superstorm Sandy. She is a fellow of the Design Trust for Public Space, the Municipal Arts Society at Rockefeller, Bellagio, and the Open Society Foundations US Program’s Technology and Future of Work initiative. Previously, Rachel worked as a strategic designer with IBM, Imagination and at Arup.

Rachel has written about the social impact of design in over twenty-five publications worldwide. She has taught at SVA since 2009 and is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Royal College of Art, UK.

Education
MA (RCA), Computer-Related (interaction) Design, Royal College of Art, UK
BA (Hons)/MA (Cantab), Social & Political Sciences, Cambridge University, UK

Website 
turnstoneconsulting.com

Course
Design for Social Value: Society Needs to See