Jerrod Windham

Jerrod Windham, IDSA | 2010 Young Educator of the Year Award

After Jerrod Windham completed his undergraduate industrial design studies at Auburn University in 2000, he joined Push Product Design in Birmingham, Alabama where he worked as a designer and project manager. When he committed to pursuing his master’s degree in industrial design, he chose Auburn as the place and sustainable design as the space he wanted to explore. After completing his graduate thesis on sustainability in 2007, Jerrod accepted a position at his alma mater where he has helped develop a sustainability course in Auburn’s industrial and graphic design department. While Jerrod teaches a sketching development class as well as exhibit, package and product design studios, his work to instill sustainability as a core business practice for aspiring designers is what defines him. Since joining the Auburn staff, he has coordinated his school’s annual Designing Green event where students learn about environmentally friendly and sustainable ways to create products. And he has helped lead the push to offer design students the choice to minor in sustainability at Auburn University.

Jerrod’s students, especially the officers of IDSA’s Auburn student chapter, nominated him for this award citing his abilities to connect with them and to plug them into real-world working scenarios as the talents that make him stand out as a professor.

Jerrod’s colleagues on Auburn’s faculty echo his students’ praise. Clark Lundell, head of Auburn’s department of industrial and graphic design, pointed to the relatively green professor’s achievements in advancing green design within the school’s design program. Lundell said, “With support from his colleagues, Jerrod has led the sustainability effort in the department. Within our curriculum, he presents a design studio strategy that accommodates and respects the needs of commerce while acknowledging the environmental impact design outcomes will have.”

Associate professor Shea Tillman summed up the feelings of many in the Auburn community saying, “We are fortunate to have gained a faculty member with his level of experience and talent in the prime of his design career.”