Deb Johnson, IDSA

Professor, Industrial Design Executive Director, The Swimming Hole Foundation  Deb Johnson has been leading the integration of sustainability design, technology and systems thinking into design education, research and entrepreneurship since 1998. She served as chair of the ID program at Pratt from 1998-2005. She was appointed as Pratt’s Academic Director of Sustainability focusing on the integration of sustainable practices throughout the art, design and architecture curricula. During her tenure, Pratt twice received the ACUPCC Presidential Leadership Award. Deb was the founder of the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Design to support design entrepreneurship (2002), PALS (the Partnership for Academic Leadership in Sustainability) a collaborative workgroup that represents over 40 art and design institutions (2010) and The Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator a sustainability driven incubator for fashion start-ups (2014). She received a $500K federal grant to explore fashion-tech innovation utilizing digital production tools. Deb was the first woman to win the IDSA Student Merit Award in 1986, served as the IDSA NYC Chapter Chair and NE Regional Education Director. Deb is also the founder and executive director of the Swimming Hole Foundation (2021) – a collaboration incubator centering on transforming how we work and teach through emergent play and liberating structures.