Profile:
Aaron Fry,
Parsons School of Design, NY
Co-founder and Director, the Visualizing Finance Lab
Associate Professor of Design Strategies, School of Design Strategies
Interim Director, BBA Strategic Design and Management, Parsons
Born in Wellington, New Zealand. Aaron Fry is an Associate Professor of Design Strategies at Parsons School
of Design (Associate Chair, Foundation, 2005-2008, Associate Director, Bachelor of Business Administration, Strategic Design and Management 2016-2017 and MS Strategic Design and Management 2018). Aaron is an artist, designer and educator with twenty-three years full-time experience in the
design education field, having previously taught full-time at three universities: two in his native country of New Zealand and prior to Parsons at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston between 1999 and 2005. Over these twenty years Aaron has taught studio art and design, art and design
history and theory, basic design and design business courses.
Previously a practicing artist (1995-2006) working in painting, installation and digital media, Aaron’s current research interests are expressed through
his writing at the intersection of design, business and the social sciences, with an emphasis on social justice. Aaron writes about fashion and start-up business entrepreneurship for journals internationally and design, culture and its application to business. Aaron is also co-director of the Visualizing
Finance Lab, a School of Design Strategies research initiative that explores the capacity of emotionally, culturally and metaphorically rich "narrative visualization" to engage the “wicked problem” of financial literacy education (FLE). The Visualizing Finance Lab hopes, in future, to empirically test the relationship between narrative visualization and financial behavior change, but is currently working on testing the agency of visually-based co-design processes in better framing questions for large-scale FLE assessment. He is the lead author of numerous articles, speaks regularly at conferences and workshops internationally on visualization, on business education and on the role of design in financial literacy. Aaron's teaching is concentrated on analyzing the role of design in 21st Century business strategy and also on strategies for information visualization; both quantitative and behavioral.
Aaron also works toward supporting the academic outputs of Parsons’ ELab and writes and speaks with ELab founder Rhea Alexander on the design-business incubator model at ELab and on the work of its fellows.
Aaron holds a BFA from Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, a Graduate Diploma in Art from Sydney Collegeof the Arts, Sydney University, Australia and an MFA from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA and is studying toward his PhD. at Swinburne University of Technology
in Melbourne, Australia. Aaron’s writing and projects can be found on academia.edu, researchgate.net and on visualizingfinancelab.com
Degrees Held:
PhD. candidate at Swinburne University of Technology
MFA, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
Graduate Diploma in Art, Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University, Australia
BFA, Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland
Recent Publications:
Visual strategies for co-design with a community partner, second author, with Carol Overby and Jennifer Wilson.
FORMakademisk, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Oslo, Norway, 2017
Design entrepreneurship in the Post-Recession Economy: Parsons’ ELab, a Design School Incubator, with Rhea Alexander and Samar Ladhib. Cuaderno 64, Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación [Ensayos], 2017, Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación, Facultad de Diseño y Comunicación. Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“Advanced Craft” Integrated with Saper Fare; the Role of Intangible Value and the Centrality of the Artisan in High Quality
21st Century Craftsmanship, with Gabriele Goretti, Samar Ladhib, Elisabetta Cianfanelli and Carol Overby. Cuaderno 64,
Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación [Ensayos], 2017
Co-Designing Financial Literacy Materials, with Jennifer Wilson, Priscilla Soberanes. Carol Overby. Proceedings from 10th International Conference on Design Principles and Practice, Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2016
Post-Recession Consumerism in the U.S.: The Influence of Cheap and Chic Consumer Products on Perceptions of Income Inequality, with Steven Faerm. Cuaderno 53, Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación [Ensayos], 2016
Teaching the design of narrative visualization: behavioral economics and financial literacy, with Carol Overby and Jennifer Wilson, Re/materialising Design Education Futures, Studies in Material Thinking Vol 11, 2016
Research Interests:
financial literacy, design and business, design strategy, metaphor and visualization, information visualization, design thinking