Research and Scholarship
I founded Parsons ELab in 2014. The lab is a design-led research lab dedicated to innovation and entrepreneurship. ELab is housed within the School of Design Strategies and serves students and recent alumni from all graduate programs at The New School. The lab provides entrepreneurial education, events, research, and support mechanisms.
ELab deploys a design-driven approach to research, utilizing design thinking and thinking-through-making methodologies to capture, synthesize, and analyze data, transforming it into actionable knowledge. This approach aims to create value within the innovation sector, including longitudinal research projects, sponsored partnerships, support mechanisms, community networks, and a space to test assumptions and system interventions, as well as forecast future trends.
Featured Publications
A new wave of entrepreneurs is leading a global paradigm shift towards values-driven business. This book empowers you to challenge the status quo and create value through its unique and adaptive approach to venture-building by design. Authored by a multidisciplinary team of practicing design strategists, business leaders, academics, and entrepreneurs, this hands-on guide models strategic design as a mindset for starting up: framing problems, applying methods, identifying opportunities, and creating pathways forward through futures and systems thinking. Carefully curated case studies of young impact-driven entrepreneurs along with resources, including action-based frameworks, diagrams, and templates for founders to replicate, and a reader’s checklist to enable the transformation of daily practice, will open new dimensions that amplify the global shift towards a more regenerative world and a multiverse of possibilities. Are you ready to journey to places where ideas for products, services, and experiences transform how we live and work?
Then this guide is for you: the Design-Driven Entrepreneur.
Book Launch
With Assoc. Dean Mark Randall
Swalé Nunez: Moderator
With co-authors Rose Pember and Kiely Sweatt
Co-Authors: Rhea Alexander and Laura Martinez, 2024
DMI Academic Conference Proceedings [ISSN: 26400-4702]
The true impact of AI on culture and economies lies in the hands of its users, not the technology itself. Human intervention is crucial for deploying AI, and strategically designed interventions can drive positive change. This research project aims to leverage AI-enabled design innovation methods to address the concerning decline in funding for female-identified founders (FIF) and their startups. Despite FIF-led businesses generating higher revenue, funding for FIF has decreased from 2.1% in 2022 to 1.8% in 2023, coinciding with AI’s commercial emergence. This alarming trend raises questions about the potential connection between AI and the widening gender gap in entrepreneurship and innovation.The research paper explores internal and external barriers and enablers within the systems impacting FIF’s access to funding. It examines the role of AI in support systems that potentially exacerbate disparities. By highlighting trends and strategies for mitigating biases in AI, the paper underscores the potential of design strategies to bridge the gap and foster a more equitable landscape.
Co-Authors: Rhea Alexander and Darcy Keester, 2021
Research Article (pg 121-144) In Experience: Implikationen für Mensch, Gesellschaft und Politik. Festschrift für Wolfgang Leidhold Edited by Claudius Mandel, Philipp Thimm, Konighausen & Neumann, 2021 [ISBN978-3-8260-7122-5]
COVID-19 left little time for educational institutions to adapt their curriculum to online learning environments. Our team at Parsons Entrepreneurs Lab (Elab), was ramping up for our first intensive accelerator program. The pandemic required us to rethink how we can give our fellows the best possible experience given current circumstances. To transition our program to be virtual, we developed a human-centered design framework centered on experience. We believe this framework can help other educators with planning to ensure that their students have a full and positive learning experience.
The study will create a holistic perspective on entrepreneurship born from The New School, past and present. Our aim is to assess the impact of entrepreneurial alumni on their local economies, and the scale and impact of their entrepreneurial ventures. This comprehensive survey will map the impact our entrepreneurial alumni have had economically, socially, creatively — in whole, visualizing a display of The New School’s entrepreneurial genome.
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COLLECT – We want to measure and map the numbers and locations of self-declared entrepreneurial alumni over time, focusing primarily on the last 100 years.
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MAP – Subsequently, we will use resources in data visualization to map the results of this widespread collection, displaying entrepreneurial alumni locally and globally further refined by social, cultural and/or economic value.
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IMPACT – The goal of this initiative is to create an engaging visualization and positively impact alumni engagement, as well as assess and demonstrate the collective impact and industry of all surveying and collected alumni.
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DEVELOP – The resulting holistic perspective will contextualize and initiate greater consideration and proof of entrepreneurship at The New School, and provide context for the many growing endeavors around entrepreneurship developing at the university.
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SHARE – We aim to share the results of this study in many forms and through many public, including a 100-Year interactive timeline to celebrate the Centennial.
More Publications
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AI Stakeholder Workshops Report, 2025
Co-Authors: Rhea Alexander and Xenia Jankovic
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Breaking Boundaries: A Unique Inter-University Program Addressing the 21st Century Skills Gap, 2019
Co-authors: Rhea Alexander, Matthew Stewart and Shane Snipes
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Managing Vulnerability and Uncertainty: Building designerly ways of doing within non-designer, 2019
Co-Authors: Rhea Alexander, Sarah Jones, and Vinay Kumar Mysore
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Strategic Design and the Future of Work-and-Wellness, Taylor and Francis, 2019
Co-authors: Rhea Alexander and Aaron Fry
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Future Pathways for Design-Driven Entrepreneurship Education, (pp 365-378) 2018
Co-authors: Rhea Alexander and Aaron Fry
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Practice What We Teach, Journal of 21st Century Education, 2016, [ISSN 2330 1236]
Co-authors: Rhea Alexander and Aaron Fry
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Design-entrepreneurship in the post-recession economy: Parsons ELab, a Design School Incubator, Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación Nº 64, 2016 [ISSN: 1668-0227]
Co-authors: Rhea Alexander, Aaron Fry and Samar Ladhib
Business as a Tool for Systems Change
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ELab Blog: Features insights and updates on ELab's initiatives, including workshops, mentorship programs, and research findings.
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ELab Incubator: Details on ELab's incubator programs, offering support for startups through workshops, mentorship, and networking opportunities.
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ELab Workshops: Information on workshops conducted by ELab, focusing on collaborative methods, design pedagogy, and skill-building.
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Grants & Sponsorships Awarded
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Innovation in Education: Teaching with AI Grant
2024
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Student Research Assistance Funds, School of Design Strategies, (approx. $5,100/yr.)
2025, ‘24, ‘20,'18,‘17
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School of Design Strategies School-Based Grant, ($1-5K/yr.)
2025, 2024, 2015-2018
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FT Faculty Research Fund Grant, Provost Office, ($2,200K/yr.)
2024
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CitiVentures Sponsorship, (25K/yr. $125K total) 5 years for Parsons Elab,
2019 - 2022
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Provost’s Office Mentoring Grant ($5,100) Academic Writing Residency for First Book Authors Grant with Cynthia Lawson, Rhea Alexander, Cotter Christin, Yvonne Watson, Jess Irish
2019 - 2020
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Dan and Gloria Bohan Foundation Grant ($25K/yr. $150K total) 6yrs for Parsons Elab
2015 - 2020
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Centennial Funds Entrepreneurial Genome Project Installation and Site ($5K)
2019
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School of Design Strategies School-Based Grant ($4-5K/yr. $20K total)
2015 - 2018
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Kauffman Foundation Inclusion Challenge Grant for Impact Entrepreneurial Initiative (IEI) Program ($420K). Collaborated to launch the IEI Program (Link), research, writing, and collaboration across TNS
2017
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VF Corp ($40K) MS SDM Program Support Grant External Partnership + Conference
2017
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Nike ($15K) MS SDM Program Support Grant External Partnership and Conference
2016
Parsons Elab Catalyst for Fellow’s Awards
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Founders Alfonso Cobo and Andy McClune were acquired by Squarespace
2019
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Founders Kate Wallace and Danny Dang’s ZER (Formerly Beyond ABC)
Recognized in Verizon's + NY Media Lab’s Challenge $200K.
2017
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Supported Civic Fleet Founder Ashley Amin was awarded a spot in The Civic Tech Leadership Program, hosted by the National Democratic Institute in collaboration with Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
2017
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Founder of Designity, Shahrouz Varshabi, got Series A, B, and C funding rounds between 2017-2019 by Don Katz, Founder and CEO of Audible (an Amazon company) and Newark Venture Partners
2016