Kakee Scott

Designing for alternative economic practices

PhD in Transition Design

Before joining the doctoral program at Carnegie Mellon University, Kakee taught design research, design for sustainability and consumption studies within the Strategic Design and Management and Environmental Studies programs at Parsons the New School for Design in New York, and organized the Strategic Design and Management program for the new Paris campus. 

In her research, she explores the intersection of design and alternative economic practice, framing design as a form of economic practice, framing economics as a form of design practice, and considering the potential of designing for post-carbon economies. Her design research approach merges strategic design processes with critical social inquiry to negotiate the dynamics between design, consumption and everyday life and draws from literature on socio-technical change, practice theory, actor-network theory, critical design, design for social innovation, design for sustainability, service design, feminist and ecological economics.

In earlier work, Kakee produced many sustainability-oriented events, programs and projects with organizations like o2NYC, o2Netherlands, Slow Food USA, J. Ottman Consulting, the EU Living Lab project, and her collaborative practice, Rift. She has a BA from Wesleyan University, an MSc in industrial ecology from the Delft University of Technology and Leiden University, and a prior year of doctoral studies between design and sociology at Lancaster University in the UK.