Dear Aspiring PhDs
If you have a scientific frame of mind, love drawing and want to make a pioneering contribution to research on design consider this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/science/researching-the-brain-of-writers.html?_r=0
If you can study creative writing in an fMRI scanner why can’t you study drawing for similar insights? PhD dissertations that could apply advanced research techniques to better understand the relation between the brain and drawing and design could advance both cognitive science and design thinking. A collaboration between a PhD candidate in design and someone like Dr. Lotze, whose work is described in the article cited above could do for drawing what Dr. Lotze and others are already doing for writing. Neuroscientists like Anjan Chatterjee at the University of Pennsylvania (reference below) and Dr. Lotze are pioneers bringing scientific insights to the arts and creative writing while few designers exhibit the capacity or vision to see issues beyond their practice and beliefs. While psychologists like Don Norman and Management educators like Donald Schon have provided significant insights on practice and thought to become major references for the field of design, the hard work of science and scientific collaboration has few exemplars from design itself, and many are of an older generation. Designers need to engage with scientists who have skills we lack. Nowhere is this more appropriate than at the PhD level.
Or, so I believe,
Chuck
Chatterjee, Anjan, 2014, “The Aesthetic Brain: How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art”, New York, Oxford University Press
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