Amrita Datta (she/her)
Amrita Datta is a Visual Communication Design faculty member at Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her research focuses on people-centered design approaches to explore cross-cultural design identity. She collaborates with community partners in Indianapolis to implement strategic and conceptual design goals, working with people rather than for them. She has facilitated workshops for the Indianapolis Department of Metropolitan Development to promote design thinking among non-designers. She has also worked on community projects with insurers and diverse partners to increase public interest in the Healthy Indiana Plan and support continuous health coverage for better wellness among Hoosiers.
Datta received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Kent State University in Visual Communication Design with a concentration in user-experience design. She then moved to Indiana to pursue her Master of Fine Arts degree at Indiana University (Indianapolis) in Design Research and Strategy, with a focus on design thinking and product development. She has led programs with schools in South Korea, Germany, and India to create cross-cultural experiences for her undergraduate students, aiming to integrate diverse intellectual experiences.
Her experiences in India, the Czech Republic, and the United States have provided her with opportunities to showcase her design vision, recognize consumer trends, and learn design practices. Her expertise in user-experience design, branding development, experimental graphic design, and connected product interfaces allows her to contribute effectively to any design task. Her research has been published nationally and internationally, including in AIGA’s SHIFT{ed} Summer Summit 2021 and the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR 2021).