Design influences our lives in ways we often don’t realize. It’s present in the schools we attend, the offices where we work, and the homes we live in.

Sierra Mack-Erb researches the impact of design as a graduate fellow at Illinois State University and is earning an M.S. in cultural anthropology in the applied community and economic development sequence.

For the past two years, she has served as an Applied Community and Economic Development Fellow at Illinois State’s Stevenson Center. The first year of the program is focused on accelerated classroom learning, and the second year is spent in an 11-month professional practice with a community or economic development organization conducting applied research.

“We are not meeting everyone’s needs through design, and that really is what inspired me to return to graduate school,” Mack-Erb said. “I wanted a program that would allow me to combine design and community-engaged anthropology research.”

As a part of their professional practice, Mack-Erb works with the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design (CIRD), a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Housing Assistance Council. CIRD aims to enhance rural America’s quality of life and economic vitality through design, planning, and creative placemaking.

Mack-Erb’s approach to research centered around understanding the value of design in rural community and economic development contexts. According to Mack-Erb, CIRD’s design process is uniquely community-engaged, and their research sought to document the value of this approach according to the rural communities CIRD’s work supports.

“I worked for several years as a professional designer in the private industry, but I was really disappointed to realize that community engagement was not a part of the design process in practice,” Mack-Erb said. “Having a multidisciplinary background, I really believe deeply in graduate students’ and faculty’s duty to create accessible, creative, and inclusive research studies.”

Mack-Erb conducted the study over eight months, completing 13 virtual interviews with rural communities participating in the CIRD program located across 12 states and five regions of the U.S. Organizing and conducting the interviews took about three months, followed by five months of analysis and report development. Mack-Erb also designed and coordinated a public research exhibit titled “Rural Perspectives on Design,” which showcases well over 200 hours worth of applied research.

Feeling supported was important for Mack-Erb, whose research was highly detailed and time-consuming. Dr. Gina Hunter, a professor of anthropology at Illinois State, also served as Mack-Erb’s graduate advisor.

“Sierra is such a fun student to work with. She came in as a fashion designer and spent her first year here totally immersed in ethnography and cultural anthropology,” Hunter said. “When she started working at CIRD and had the idea to conduct an evaluation of their rural design programs, she knew she wanted to use an ethnographic methodology for it. Her final report is really rich and informative, now being used by CIRD to help them go forward.”

Mack-Erb felt it was important to incorporate visual storytelling into their final product, moving beyond the traditional formal essay used to present research findings. This approach made Mack-Erb’s work more engaging and accessible for people to interact with and learn from.

“I think the reality is traditional academic research doesn’t often reach people,” Mack-Erb said. “Visual storytelling and creative approaches to showcasing graduate and faculty research are incredibly vital as strategies to make research more accessible to the public and more inclusive. Knowledge is power, and ultimately, it can only be powerful if we share it with people.”

The exhibit features coded quotes from Mack-Erb’s interviews, pictures of participating rural communities and CIRD design process, and a map of the communities included in the study.

“I don’t think there are many places you could get a master’s degree and people would be open to you developing a visual research exhibit as opposed to a more formal thesis, but I have that opportunity here, and that’s really special.”

The exhibit premiered at the Illinois Art Station, alongside Mack-Erb’s research findings. The exhibit has since been reinstalled at the Rachel Cooper Gallery (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Gallery) and will be displayed until April 30.

“Don’t be afraid of doing something differently than it’s been done before,” Mack-Erb said. “Learning is the impetus for innovation, and innovation doesn’t happen without change. So, be open about your interests. Be open about doing multidisciplinary research and challenging conventions.”