is an anthropologist turned creative director living in Brooklyn, NY
Lana has spent a decade in the creative services industry making big ideas more human for companies like Radical Media, IDEO and VICE Media. She is currently the Creative Director of the R&D team at The New York Times.
Lana graduated summa cum laude from University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Cultural Anthropology and minors in Science, Technology and Society and Theater Arts. She holds an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art in London. Her personal fascination, and the subject of her master’s thesis, is the relationship between memory and imagination. An archive of her early work is here.
Lana graduated summa cum laude from University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Cultural Anthropology and minors in Science, Technology and Society and Theater Arts. She holds an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art in London. Her personal fascination, and the subject of her master’s thesis, is the relationship between memory and imagination. An archive of her early work is here.
News
2021
R&D website redesign and branding featured in It’s Nice That
2021
Interviewed by Alex Westfall for Killscreen.com
2021
Gave a virtual R&D talk at the Brown Institute
2021
Gave a virtual R&D talk at Georgia Tech and UC Berkeley
2020
Published “Reconstructing Journalistic Scenes in 3D” on the R&D Website
2020
Invited to speak at the D&AD Festival in London [Cancelled]
2020
Guest lectured at RISD.GD (via Zoom)
2019
Spoke at the DesignThinkers conference in Toronto
2019
Joined the R&D team at The New York Times
2019
Launched Women Who Changed Science, an AI-assisted web experience for Microsoft and Nobel Media
2018
Influenced the senate vote to restore net neutrality with dynamic, location-based media that allowed people to call or text their senators directly from the ads
2018
Exhibited Night Botany, a poster show and fundraiser to benefit the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands, at SOMMWHERE gallery in NYC
2018
Featured in Communication Arts
2016
Featured in the “New Voices in Design” series of Debbie Millman’s Design Matters podcast
2016
Co-led “Elastic Narratives” workshop as part of Parsons’ VergeNYC conferencce
2015
Presented “Data as Artifacts in Design Interventions” at the Design Anthropological Futures Conference in Copenhagen
2015
Visiting critic in speculative design for SVA's Products of Design MA
2015
Designer-in-residence at Laboratorio para la Ciudad in Mexico City