I am a sociologist who lives inside the questions I study. In the tradition of Loïc Wacquant’s carnal sociology, I treat the body as a way of knowing, and design as a way of returning what I learn to the world.

My work on dress began in my own body: four years without mirrors and more than a decade of making garments, first for myself, then thousands more for others, each one a way into a body other than my own.

My doctoral research worked the same way. While studying designers caught in retail jobs instead of making their own work, I designed, made, and sold objects myself, including the Kodama light, to understand their position from the inside.

When our research at MIT’s Institute for Career Transitions found that job seekers fare better together than alone, I built that finding back out as lilipod, a social job-search app.

Today that inquiry runs through my research, my design studio Herderin, and The Unbecoming Sessions.