Jess Brown is a disrupter and cultural curator crafting spaces for critical conversations. Her work merges art, music, science and design, using historical references, pop culture, humor and joy to tackle complex issues through a justice-centered lens. As a multi-hyphenate social impact designer, Black futurist, Afro-cosmonaut explorer, and Creative Connector, she makes ideas visible, solves problems through innovation, and champions equity with a life-centered approach.

Activism, organizing and truth telling are at the center of Jess Brown’s design practice. Formerly a Toy Designer and Project Manager of product development of Licensed Brands at Hasbro, now she is currently an Associate Professor of Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design and has a thriving studio and freelance practice, creating engagement tools for companies, designing satirical toys, creating safe spaces through products or environments for Black women and building immersive environments as a means of escape from our everyday lives.

Adding to her list, she is now a member of the Ocean Nexus Network and working toward her Phd at the University of Rhode Island, studying water divinity and how water access for populations on the margins can be a portal for liberation and healing. If you can’t get a hold of Jess, you can find her at the ocean…floating.

Her personal interests include floating, fishing, kayaking, napping, community gatherings, jumpsuits, fly sneakers, connect 4, golden girls and the norman lear universe, female celebrity memoirs, delicious fluffy biscuits.