Jess Parris Westbrook

Background

About Jess Parris Westbrook

Jess Parris Westbrook (they/them) is a researcher, designer, and creative who loves complexity, systems, behavior, and the study of presence, interaction, and learning. Westbrook is an Associate Professor of Design in Chicago IL (2016) where they teach across UxD/HCI, Data Viz, Creative Coding and UI, QUAL/QUANT, and Creative Methods subject areas. In previous years Westbrook was an Associate Professor of Contemporary Practices (surface, space, time) and Art and Technology Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Chicago, IL where they served as a Director and were tenured in 2015. Their first academic appointment was at The University of Tennessee Chattanooga where they were Assistant Professor of Graphic Design and Photography and Media Art. Their earliest career phase was in interactive design and all things web development for NTT DOCOMO/Verio then interactive design for children's museums. Westbrook is credentialed in creativity assessment administration and scoring (Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking TTCT; U Georgia), and has spent most of their personal and professional life engaged in creative practices and creative technologies. Building on these experiences, Westbrook is interested in the meanings, measures, and analysis of learning outcomes that escape standards and normality, and support individual progress and agency. Westbrook is a PhD candidate (ABD) in Educational Leadership with a concentration in Higher Education. Motivated by the experience of learning, both human and non-human, Westbrook continues to expand their research orientations and practice toolkit(s). Several years of completed coursework intersects leadership themes, curriculum theory, educational research, and learning sciences. Their dissertation approach is a positionality-infused mixed methods framework prototype currently titled,"Iteration 1.0 The Queering Futures Framework (QFF) prototype, an expanded mixed methods research framework integrating qualitative, quantitative, and practice-based modes""My positionality describes my personal vulnerabilities and contexts – my disabled body, my Queer mind, my creative activity and my professional pathways, all of which are deeply intertwined."- Westbrook 2022 "Transdisciplinarity is described as a '21st century research attitude'(Davis & Sumara, 2008, p.35), combining 'transgression with problem solving'(Bernstein, 2015, p.11), that enables researchers and practitioners access to wicked problems and complex phenomena (Guimarães, et al 2019)." Westbrook 2022 more: