Open Rank, Tenure-Track Professor or Professor-of-Practice
Department of Human Centered Design, College of Human Ecology

The Department of Human Centered Design (HCD) brings multi-disciplinary perspectives together to improve health and well-being through design. Through transdisciplinary thinking and expertise, we bring arts and design, material and social sciences, and the humanities to innovate, investigate, and address real-world challenges by using analog and digital knowledge, tools, rigorous research methods, and creative processes. Our faculty includes scientists, artists, anthropologists, historians, architects, engineers, psychologists, and experts in apparel, interiors, business, material sciences, and technology. We work together and collaborate externally with colleagues from across the university, as well as industry and non-profit community partners, to conduct research and enhance students’ learning. Using state-of-the-art lab and studio spaces, we conceptualize, prototype, and evaluate products and processes that enhance human potential, health equity, social justice, sustainability, and community flourishing. (https://www.human.cornell.edu/hcd).

We are seeking an exceptional scholar to join our faculty in the area of Fashion Design Management. We welcome scholars who approach their respective area of expertise from a multi-disciplinary range of perspectives. Research, teaching, and engagement/outreach interests may include, but are not limited to:

• Exploring and critiquing the role of design and management in producing, expressing, and shaping human identities, cultures, and communities.
• Examining the social, behavioral, philosophical, industrial, political, and economic forces that fuel consumption, production, regulation, distribution, and representation of fashion in both material and media forms.
• Generating and translating novel solutions in apparel design and manufacturing across a spectrum of products, practices, and policies to enhance the lived experience and improve daily life.
• Analyzing the impacts of fashion trends on mental and physical health.
• Innovating, leveraging, and evaluating technologies that increase efficiency, transparency, and traceability in fiber, textile, and apparel production.
• Developing environmentally and socially responsible design practices and possibilities that have a beneficial impact on ecologies, social spaces, justice-oriented efforts, industries, individuals, and communities. 
• Scrutinizing the relationship between fiber, textile, and fashion industries with sustainability broadly defined.
• Creating, evaluating, and applying rapidly renewable materials and exploring circular, reuse, and/or disposal processes and their impacts.

If you are applying as a tenure track Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor, a Ph.D. is required. The successful candidate will demonstrate the potential for growth and an ability to develop a world-class research and design program that engages with current issues in one or more of the above areas and must provide unequivocal evidence of excellence in teaching and advising at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Responsibilities are equally divided between creating a successful research program, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses and advising B.S., M.A., M.S., M.P.S., and Ph.D. students. They are also expected to provide service to the department and university community

If you are applying as a Professor of Practice. The successful candidate will have significant industry experience and impact and demonstrate the potential to develop a world-class design teaching program that engages with current issues in one or more of the above areas. Responsibilities include teaching courses, advising students, and may include a research program. They are also expected to provide service to the department and university community.

HCD has strong connections to several other units on campus. These relationships support the department’s aim to address real-world challenges and opportunities through critical, creative, and collaborative engagement with design. We seek a colleague who is committed to social and environmental justice and will advance scholarly and real-world understandings of how design shapes environments, humans, and the interaction between the two.

Cornell has an ongoing commitment to its founding principle of educating “any person…in any study,” and the university offers a collegial and supportive campus atmosphere and high quality of life. Beyond campus, Ithaca is in the heart of the Finger Lakes region which boasts a vibrant cultural life amidst breathtaking natural beauty. A wide range of outdoor activities is close at hand in all seasons. Cornell also seeks to meet the needs of dual-career couples, with both its own Dual Career program and membership in the Upstate New York Higher Education Recruitment Consortium to assist in dual career searches. 

We ask applicants for all faculty positions to share their experiences and/or approaches (past, current, or future) to fostering learning, research services, and/or outreach in a diverse community. Applicants may choose to submit a stand-alone statement or embed the information in other parts of their application materials.

TO APPLY: Please submit, via https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/27398 

• Cover letter 
• CV 
• Three (3) letters of reference are required for junior applicants. Senior candidates may be asked for reference letters at a later date and should provide names and contact information for three references at the time of application. References will not be contacted without notifying the Senior applicant in advance.
• Research statement (required for applicants seeking the Tenure Track faculty position) 
• Impact statement (required for applicants seeking the Professor of Practice position)
• Teaching statement
• A description of approaches to working with a diverse community (optional)

In the case where any of these materials are posted on the Internet, please submit a Word document describing each electronic posting and include a link (a URL) to it. The starting date for the new hire may be as early as the Fall semester of 2024, but applications will be accepted and reviewed until the position is filled.   We will start reviewing applications on April 15, 2024.

For more information, please contact Sienna Torbitt, slt86@cornell.edu