Abby Wilson uses design practice and other deliberative tools to change how we work and to help women lead. Passionate about a phenomenological approach to tech, she is interested in embodied cognition and VR/AR as an untapped force for good. Abby is rooting for tech that enables authentic interpersonal connections, deepens self-knowledge and awareness, and cultivates empathy. She has been a member of LUMA Institute’s Senior Instructor community since 2011, and believes that design literacy supercharges the human ‘ fixing’ instinct by making it more resilient and creative, especially in the presence of material, financial or cultural constraints.
She served as founding director of the federal government’s first design-led innovation lab, the Lab@OPM, partnering with the Obama White House and over a dozen federal agencies to develop more user-friendly policies and services. She created and led a new policy organization at the Allegheny County Health Department, where she was a Deputy Director for 4 years. There, she spearheaded design-led policy & civic engagement efforts on healthcare access, substance use, vaccination & lead exposure. She holds a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University, an LL.M. in Public International Law from Universiteit Utrecht, a J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, and is a certified mediator. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Newsweek, National Public Radio, ‘The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,’ The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, & others.