skip to Main Content
Lily Irani

Lilly Irani: Seeking to the Community Behind the Wheel in Tech

Lilly Irani: Seeking to the Community Behind the Wheel in Tech

Lilly Irani: Seeking to the Community Behind the Wheel in Tech

Lilly Irani is currently an associate professor in the Communication department and an affiliate faculty member at The UCSD Design Lab. She’s the winner of the 2020 International Communication Association Outstanding Book Award and the 2019 Diana Forsythe Prize for her book Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India. Inspired by the work of Lucy Suchman, Lilly’s research in the field of design extends beyond simply “asking what’s right and wrong and for whom,” but encompasses giving workers and communities “an actual voice in shaping the technology” and getting “political agency over the technologies that we use,” as she put it. 

Before arriving at UCSD, Lilly first earned her B.S., then M.S., in Computer Science at Stanford University. Then, she earned her Ph.D. in Informatics with a feminist emphasis at the University of California, Irvine. In addition, Lilly has also done work for companies like Google and Intel. Lilly originally entered UCSD as an assistant professor in the Communication department in 2013. She got involved with the Design Lab a year later, organizing the Design@Large speaker series, and eventually became an affiliate faculty member in 2016. When asked about why she is involved in the Design Lab, Lilly pointed to several things she finds important about the community and why she values it. “One of the things that is really important to me is getting to work with students who have this hope to contribute their time, work, and imagination to making the world around them better and getting to channel those energies into projects that communities that they find meaningful in San Diego.” Another reason she stays involved with The Design Lab is “to make sure that those ethical perspectives are included in the conversation about design,” she said. “It’s important that they’re included in how students are educated about design, and I want to find allies who care about that, as well.” 

Lilly also emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of design, and the importance of designers interacting across disciplines.  “We should learn from ethnic studies scholars and black studies scholars to understand how race shapes power. Instead of trying to do it all ourselves, we have to ally ourselves with and value others who have a stake in what we hope to achieve.  [A]s we grow and include faculty from the humanities, from urban studies, from visual arts, I think that we have a better chance of being able to address that full-stack complexity of designing things that people can actually shape and adapts democratically as they live with them.” 

This is also partly the reason for Lilly joining the Communication department. She notes that the Communication department “looks at the systems that mediate our relationships with others” and focuses on the broader challenges that society and even design face. “I actually think that a lot of the big challenges that we have for the design of technologies are not about pushing the cutting edge of how you manufacture something or how you make an algorithm work. A lot of the big problems that we’re trying to understand as a society are actually about understanding the relationship between the social effects and the shape of technologies, so I think the Communication department offers, in computer science terms, a full-stack education.”

When asked her future with The Design Lab, Lilly noted that “one of [her] big hopes is to support students and community members who want to build projects that can show us examples of alternatives to how big tech is trying to organize our communication, transportation, education, and other aspects of our lives.” 

Her involvement with the community is nothing short of impressive. For ten years, Lilly co-designed and maintained a website for online gig workers on the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform to let workers share reviews of employers and jobs to take or avoid. Over the last two years, she has grown the software platform into a worker advocacy organization run by Mechanical Turk workers themselves, so they can also organize to improve their work conditions in ways that matter to them. 

More recently, she has worked with the United Taxi Workers San Diego to champion a program to digitize access to taxis for first and last mile transportation in San Diego. This project works towards maintaining good wages and rights for essential transport workers while working towards climate justice by using taxis to make public transit more useful to San Diegans. Design Lab members Udayan Tandon, Vera Khovanskaya, Enrique Arcilla, and Sam Muñoz work on this project. 

All in all, Lilly Irani is a seasoned designer and excited to continue contributing to the field.  Currently, she is especially excited to work on the Transitional Ecologies Studio with UCSD professors Manuel Shvartzberg Carrio and Matilde Cordoba Azcárate that seeks “to put together a lab that provides a supportive space for people who want to design in a way that empowers communities to get their needs met through technology and innovative environmental projects.”

Lilly Irani is currently an associate professor in the Communication department and an affiliate faculty member at The UCSD Design Lab. She’s the winner of the 2020 International Communication Association Outstanding Book Award and the 2019 Diana Forsythe Prize for her book Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India. Inspired by the work of Lucy Suchman, Lilly’s research in the field of design extends beyond simply “asking what’s right and wrong and for whom,” but encompasses giving workers and communities “an actual voice in shaping the technology” and getting “political agency over the technologies that we use,” as she put it. 

Before arriving at UCSD, Lilly first earned her B.S., then M.S., in Computer Science at Stanford University. Then, she earned her Ph.D. in Informatics with a feminist emphasis at the University of California, Irvine. In addition, Lilly has also done work for companies like Google and Intel. Lilly originally entered UCSD as an assistant professor in the Communication department in 2013. She got involved with the Design Lab a year later, organizing the Design@Large speaker series, and eventually became an affiliate faculty member in 2016. When asked about why she is involved in the Design Lab, Lilly pointed to several things she finds important about the community and why she values it. “One of the things that is really important to me is getting to work with students who have this hope to contribute their time, work, and imagination to making the world around them better and getting to channel those energies into projects that communities that they find meaningful in San Diego.” Another reason she stays involved with The Design Lab is “to make sure that those ethical perspectives are included in the conversation about design,” she said. “It’s important that they’re included in how students are educated about design, and I want to find allies who care about that, as well.” 

Lilly also emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of design, and the importance of designers interacting across disciplines.  “We should learn from ethnic studies scholars and black studies scholars to understand how race shapes power. Instead of trying to do it all ourselves, we have to ally ourselves with and value others who have a stake in what we hope to achieve.  [A]s we grow and include faculty from the humanities, from urban studies, from visual arts, I think that we have a better chance of being able to address that full-stack complexity of designing things that people can actually shape and adapts democratically as they live with them.” 

This is also partly the reason for Lilly joining the Communication department. She notes that the Communication department “looks at the systems that mediate our relationships with others” and focuses on the broader challenges that society and even design face. “I actually think that a lot of the big challenges that we have for the design of technologies are not about pushing the cutting edge of how you manufacture something or how you make an algorithm work. A lot of the big problems that we’re trying to understand as a society are actually about understanding the relationship between the social effects and the shape of technologies, so I think the Communication department offers, in computer science terms, a full-stack education.”

When asked her future with The Design Lab, Lilly noted that “one of [her] big hopes is to support students and community members who want to build projects that can show us examples of alternatives to how big tech is trying to organize our communication, transportation, education, and other aspects of our lives.” 

Her involvement with the community is nothing short of impressive. For ten years, Lilly co-designed and maintained a website for online gig workers on the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform to let workers share reviews of employers and jobs to take or avoid. Over the last two years, she has grown the software platform into a worker advocacy organization run by Mechanical Turk workers themselves, so they can also organize to improve their work conditions in ways that matter to them. 

More recently, she has worked with the United Taxi Workers San Diego to champion a program to digitize access to taxis for first and last mile transportation in San Diego. This project works towards maintaining good wages and rights for essential transport workers while working towards climate justice by using taxis to make public transit more useful to San Diegans. Design Lab members Udayan Tandon, Vera Khovanskaya, Enrique Arcilla, and Sam Muñoz work on this project. 

All in all, Lilly Irani is a seasoned designer and excited to continue contributing to the field.  Currently, she is especially excited to work on the Transitional Ecologies Studio with UCSD professors Manuel Shvartzberg Carrio and Matilde Cordoba Azcárate that seeks “to put together a lab that provides a supportive space for people who want to design in a way that empowers communities to get their needs met through technology and innovative environmental projects.”

Lilly Irani is currently an associate professor in the Communication department and an affiliate faculty member at The UCSD Design Lab. She’s the winner of the 2020 International Communication Association Outstanding Book Award and the 2019 Diana Forsythe Prize for her book Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India. Inspired by the work of Lucy Suchman, Lilly’s research in the field of design extends beyond simply “asking what’s right and wrong and for whom,” but encompasses giving workers and communities “an actual voice in shaping the technology” and getting “political agency over the technologies that we use,” as she put it. 

Before arriving at UCSD, Lilly first earned her B.S., then M.S., in Computer Science at Stanford University. Then, she earned her Ph.D. in Informatics with a feminist emphasis at the University of California, Irvine. In addition, Lilly has also done work for companies like Google and Intel. Lilly originally entered UCSD as an assistant professor in the Communication department in 2013. She got involved with the Design Lab a year later, organizing the Design@Large speaker series, and eventually became an affiliate faculty member in 2016. When asked about why she is involved in the Design Lab, Lilly pointed to several things she finds important about the community and why she values it. “One of the things that is really important to me is getting to work with students who have this hope to contribute their time, work, and imagination to making the world around them better and getting to channel those energies into projects that communities that they find meaningful in San Diego.” Another reason she stays involved with The Design Lab is “to make sure that those ethical perspectives are included in the conversation about design,” she said. “It’s important that they’re included in how students are educated about design, and I want to find allies who care about that, as well.” 

Lilly also emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of design, and the importance of designers interacting across disciplines.  “We should learn from ethnic studies scholars and black studies scholars to understand how race shapes power. Instead of trying to do it all ourselves, we have to ally ourselves with and value others who have a stake in what we hope to achieve.  [A]s we grow and include faculty from the humanities, from urban studies, from visual arts, I think that we have a better chance of being able to address that full-stack complexity of designing things that people can actually shape and adapts democratically as they live with them.” 

This is also partly the reason for Lilly joining the Communication department. She notes that the Communication department “looks at the systems that mediate our relationships with others” and focuses on the broader challenges that society and even design face. “I actually think that a lot of the big challenges that we have for the design of technologies are not about pushing the cutting edge of how you manufacture something or how you make an algorithm work. A lot of the big problems that we’re trying to understand as a society are actually about understanding the relationship between the social effects and the shape of technologies, so I think the Communication department offers, in computer science terms, a full-stack education.”

When asked her future with The Design Lab, Lilly noted that “one of [her] big hopes is to support students and community members who want to build projects that can show us examples of alternatives to how big tech is trying to organize our communication, transportation, education, and other aspects of our lives.” 

Her involvement with the community is nothing short of impressive. For ten years, Lilly co-designed and maintained a website for online gig workers on the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform to let workers share reviews of employers and jobs to take or avoid. Over the last two years, she has grown the software platform into a worker advocacy organization run by Mechanical Turk workers themselves, so they can also organize to improve their work conditions in ways that matter to them. 

More recently, she has worked with the United Taxi Workers San Diego to champion a program to digitize access to taxis for first and last mile transportation in San Diego. This project works towards maintaining good wages and rights for essential transport workers while working towards climate justice by using taxis to make public transit more useful to San Diegans. Design Lab members Udayan Tandon, Vera Khovanskaya, Enrique Arcilla, and Sam Muñoz work on this project. 

All in all, Lilly Irani is a seasoned designer and excited to continue contributing to the field.  Currently, she is especially excited to work on the Transitional Ecologies Studio with UCSD professors Manuel Shvartzberg Carrio and Matilde Cordoba Azcárate that seeks “to put together a lab that provides a supportive space for people who want to design in a way that empowers communities to get their needs met through technology and innovative environmental projects.”

Read Next

Design Lab Connect2health National Cancer Institute

UC San Diego Design Lab Joins FCC, NCI to Champion Critical Role of Broadband in Rural Cancer Care

The Federal Communications Commission’s Connect2Health Task Force (C2HFCC) announced last week that the FCC and the…

Nazima Ahmad is Putting People Over Profits by Connecting Art and Design at the Design Lab

If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that our communities are more important than ever. The pandemic has changed the ways in which we experience and perceive community—sometimes even causing us to feel that it has vanished. The past two years have been an uncertain time for those involved in the arts, with many creative professionals being impacted by dwindling audiences and interest. Nazima Ahmad, a Designer-in-Residence at The Design Lab, noticed the crumbling connection between artists and consumers and sought to find a way to mend it. Working with fellow designer Michelle Hoogenhout, the two were able to come up with City Canvas, a concept developed in collaboration with the Arts and Commission Department of the City of San Diego that won the 2020 SCALE San Diego Urban Innovation Challenge that works to make connecting with local artists easier for San Diego residents.

“Working with the city on that project was all-around trying to figure out how to promote the creative economy of San Diego,” says Ahmad of the goal of the project. Not only was the project a great success at Design Week, but it is also what led Ahmad to The Design Lab.
Design Lab Cat Hicks Signalio

Cat Hicks Q&A: A Conversation about Google & her new start-up Signal IO

The Design Lab has long lasting impacts. Catherine Hicks has seen the Design Lab since its…

Report: Military Remains Economic Bright Spot In San Diego

Report: Military remains economic bright spot in San Diego

Design Lab member Michael Meyer discusses San Diego's defense economy during Covid with ABC 10 News San Diego.

The coronavirus pandemic appears to have been no match for San Diego's defense economy, which a new report says keeps on growing.

The San Diego Military Advisory Council study says from the fiscal year 2020 to 2021, direct defense spending was $35.3 billion dollars, a 5.3 percent annual gain. Jobs grew 2 percent to nearly 349,112. In all, it made for a $55.2 billion dollar gross regional product.

"That means continued stability and economic prosperity for San Diego, buffered by, or provided by the military economy presence," said Michael Meyer, a professor at UC San Diego's Rady School of Management, which researched the report.

The study points out that military spending impacts more than the people employed by the federal government or serving on base or active duty. Instead, there's a multiplier effect in San Diego, with nearly 190,000 San Diegans employed by private companies contracting with the defense department -- such as in programming or shipbuilding.

"Retraining for electronics, computers, aviation, the engineering fields, the technical financial fields. That's all valuable and an effective way of getting into the military economy," Meyer said.

Design Lab & UCSD Spaces strive for Educational Equity Through Design

Who better to learn about good design than the people who will most benefit from…

Anti-racism Ucsd Design Lab

Studio Sessions – Power, Privilege, and Ethical Responses: Anti-Racism

In these times of critical conversations about civic and social justice, equity and inclusion, the Design Lab is sponsoring a series on Power, Privilege, and Ethical Responses (PPER). Our current focus is on anti-racism, specifically as it pertains to our black communities.

Part of this initiative is a series of Studio Sessions, designed to share tools that address the experiences of our black community, in hopes of bridging existing gaps between the historical precedent and current calls to action. These interactive sessions are meant to be a dialogue nurturing communication and self-reflection to build empathy and ethical responsibility amongst participants.

By utilizing Human Centered Design we can move from current structures of racism to a more inclusive system for all. Expert speakers address issues affecting our Black community ranging from the structures of Anti-blackness and White Fragility to Voter Suppression, Education, the School to Prison Pipeline, Environmental Racism, and much more. By bringing awareness to these issues in real-time, we can feel safe and move into reinforcing behaviors of oneness in real-time using the Design process and civic engagement elements of the training.
Back To Top