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Job Description
The College of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of assistant professor in Interaction Design. We are looking for a promising designer who seeks to develop their own creative practice within a collaborative school of design and art, all within the context of a Research-1 university. Our faculty work with undergraduate and graduate students in human-computer interaction, interaction design, graphic design, social design, and illustration. We anticipate many opportunities ahead to build and reshape curricula.
We are interested in candidates whose research aims to shape how people interact with contemporary and emerging technologies. Projects could include websites, apps, games, interfaces, wearables, immersive environments, and more. Creative practices might be organized in other ways—for example, around sustainability, medicine, public health, and urban technology. We embrace many forms of research, including scholarly, collaborative, client-driven, or self-generated. Overall, we seek people who build critical inquiry and a strong sense of craft and methodology into their design practice. Candidates should demonstrate capacity for excellence in teaching.
Our new colleague will conduct research, teach five courses per academic year, advise students, and provide service to the School, University, and profession. A terminal degree in design or a related field is required. Rank and salary for the position is commensurate with experience. The appointment begins August 2025. For fullest consideration, apply by January 6, 2025.
Our new faculty member will teach in the undergraduate communication design program. We offer BA and BFA Degrees in Communication Design, with the option to concentrate in Interaction Design, and a minor in Human-Computer Interaction—jointly offered with the McKelvey School of Engineering. This minor is projected to grow into a forthcoming major.
The successful candidate will also join a core group of faculty at the intersection of design, technological innovation, and social impact in the recently launched Master of Design (MDes) for HCI and Emerging Technology aiming to produce the next generation of design leaders and socially innovative digital products. The program’s first cohort enrolls in the fall of 2025. It is offered in partnership with the McKelvey School of Engineering, the School of Arts & Sciences, and the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Expected expanded partnerships include the College of Medicine, the Brown School of Social Work, and the forthcoming School of Public Health. The MDes program will ultimately reside in the planned Design Futures Hub in Weil Hall and is projected to be a significant component of both the Sam Fox School and the broader university’s strategic plan to make WashU an intersection for digital transformation, social innovation, and global impact.
Housed in the College of Art, these programs also collaborate with Illustration, Graphic Design, Studio Arts, and Fashion Design. Faculty across these programs are collaborative, energetic, accomplished, and community-centric. We are a group of designers, illustrators, and historians who prioritize artifact and human-centered design pedagogies; write in scholarly, critical, and expressive forms; design socially engaged processes; design human-computer interaction; and study the history and culture of design. Specific areas of expertise include user experience and interface design, typography, data visualization, socially-engaged design, brand identity, motion graphics, design research and image-making including children’s books and editorial illustration.
Undergraduate design majors mix gateway courses like Typography, Interaction Foundations, and Word and Image with specialized electives and concluding capstones to construct their specialties and portfolios. Our undergraduate minor in Creative Practice for Social Change builds on a partnership with the Brown School of Social Work. Across all our programs, Communication Design faculty teach in team and individual settings, simultaneously reinforcing their research and seeding collaboration.
Design faculty have access to ample university resources across the University to conduct their work including the Kranzberg Studio for the Illustrated Book (with letterpress and risograph), University Library Special Collections, and the Dowd Illustration Research Archive (DIRA), that features illustration holdings, rare books, and print history collections. The School and University also host conferences, forums, and funding opportunities for faculty in a variety of formats.
RELEVANT LINKS
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts https://samfoxschool.washu.edu/
Facilities https://samfoxschool.washu.edu/places/facilities
College of Art https://samfoxschool.washu.edu/academics/college-of-art
College of Architecture https://samfoxschool.washu.edu/academics/college-of-architecture
Master of Design for HCI and Emerging Technology https://samfoxschool.washu.edu/academics/college-of-art/master-of-design
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum https://www.kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu/
10 Year Strategic Plan https://issuu.com/samfoxschool/docs/sfs-stratplan2022_booklet_web_final
Events https://samfoxschool.washu.edu/calendar
Office of Socially Engaged Practice https://samfoxschool.washu.edu/collaborations/socially-engaged-practice
Washington University in St Louis https://washu.edu/
The Sam Fox School strives to increase diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in our community. Candidates should demonstrate an ability to nurture an inclusive learning and work environment and to promote a culture and ethos that values diversity, inclusion, and equitable success.
Washington University in St. Louis is committed to the principles and practices of equal employment opportunity and affirmative action. It is the University’s policy to recruit, hire, train, and promote persons in all job titles without regard to race, color, age, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, veteran status, disability, or genetic information.
Each year Washington University publishes a Safety and Security brochure that details what to do and whom to contact in an emergency. This report also publishes the federally required annual security and fire safety reports, containing campus crime and fire statistics as well as key University policies and procedures. You may access the Safety and Security brochure at https://police.wustl.edu/clery-reports-logs/.
Application Details
Applications should include:
• letter of intent describing your interest in our program and the nature of your research/creative practice
• CV
• approximately 15 samples of your visual and interactive work
• brief summary of your teaching philosophy including your approach to diversity
• if available, samples of student work
• names and contact information of three references including how you are acquainted
• Note: references for finalists only will be contacted
Materials are submitted through Interfolio apply.interfolio.com/157457. For full consideration, materials should be received by January 6, 2025, however, applications will be reviewed until the search is concluded. Questions may be directed to Jonathan Hanahan, chair of the search committee, at jhanahan@wustl.edu.