Lisa Elzey Mercer (she/her) is a designer, educator, and researcher, and, most recently, a student again working toward a Ph.D. in Design at the University of Edinburgh. Her interests are in developing and executing design interventions that fuel and sustain ethics in design. The frameworks and tools she develops are intended to create a space for participants to co-design and collaborate on innovative solutions.
Elzey Mercer is currently working as a consultant in academia, community, and industry and as the co-founder of the non-profit Hatch & Flock. She was an Associate Professor in the School of Art and Design, in the College of Fine and Applied Arts, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She was an active contributor to the BFA in Graphic Design and the MFA in Design for Responsible Innovation.
She holds a Master of Design Research from the University of North Texas and a BFA in Visual Communication and Design from Purdue University. She worked in the industry for 15 years and owned Mercer Studio in Denver, Colorado and Forth Worth, Texas. Her roles included project management, interaction design, mobile application development, and digital interface research.
Racism Untaught, The MIT Press
Elzey Mercer co-wrote, with Terresa Moses at the University of Minnesota, the book Racism Untaught, Revealing and Unlearning Racialized Design, published by The MIT Press in October 2023. The book is focused on the generative research study conducted to develop the Racism Untaught framework.
By Metropolis Editors, August 24, 2023. Link to Read Here.
“This groundbreaking book dives deep into the hidden biases embedded within design practices and offers a transformative approach to dismantling systemic racism. Taking readers on a journey through the history of design, Mercer and Moses showcase how racialized design perpetuates inequality and exclusion in our society and challenges readers to confront their own biases and actively engage in unlearning these harmful design patterns. Racism Untaught includes practical strategies that aim to empower individuals and communities to create a more inclusive and equitable future. It is a must-read for designers, activists, and anyone committed to dismantling racism in design.”
—Metropolis
If you are an educator, your students will dearly appreciate the conversations that result from exposure to a greater diversity of design voices. For practicing corporate designers, these books will help you to consider a broader history of design storytelling.”
Racism Untaught, published by The MIT Press, by Lisa Elzey Mercer and Terresa Moses, “Racism Untaught” provides an insightful #toolkit and #framework which is meant to disrupt the #statusquo of the #designresearch process and focus on the #development of anti-racist designs in collaborative #design environments.
The goal of this toolkit is to teach how to analyze design—and reimagine racialized artifacts, systems, and experiences guided by anti-racist/anti-oppressive principles.
Through their work, Mercer and Moses demonstrate how to examine one’s positionality within the context of racism and oppression, helping participants understand how design can reinforce and perpetuate oppression.
In Racism Untaught, Mercer and Moses provide the #framework we need to unlearn racialized design practices and move more generatively toward collective liberation through a core value of “antiracist design”.
How can we disrupt normative design practice through different approaches? How can we discuss and analyze topics of racism and oppression in ways that lead to a de-construction and re-construction of design practices in work environments, community spaces and more?
—NEWCOMM
Design educators Lisa E. Mercer and Terresa Moses explain in their new book, Racism Untaught, how design can offer tools for anti-racism accessible to anyone.
Working from the understanding that many of the objects, brands, spaces and systems around us today have been built against a backdrop of ongoing racism and colonial legacies, the book’s premise is that just as racialised experiences have come to be through design, they can also be designed out.
To view additional publications, please download my curriculum vitae or view my publications here.
Journal Articles
Elzey Mercer, Lisa, and Angelica Sibrian, Nekita Thomas, and Terresa Moses. 2023. “Designing Collective Racial Healing Spaces.” The International Journal of Diversity in Education 23 (1): 67-86. DOI:10.18848/2327-0020/CGP/v23i01/67-86.
Moses, Terresa, and Lisa Elzey Mercer. “Examining the Influence of Positionality on the Facilitation of Design Processes,” Dialectic, vol. 3, no.1 (2022): DOI: 10.3998/dialectic.14932326.0003.105.
Elzey Mercer, Lisa, and D. McDonagh. “The Pedagogy of Discomfort: Transformational Experiential Learning,” DISCERN: International Journal of Design for Social Change, Sustainable Innovation and Entrepreneurship, vol. 2, no. 2, (2021): p. 22-35.
Elzey Mercer, Lisa, “Design-led Social Innovation in Human Trafficking,” Design Management Institute Journal,
vol. 1 (2019): p. 43-49. DOI: 10.1111/dmj.12050.
Elzey Mercer, Lisa, and Terresa Moses. “Identifying Racialized Design to Cultivate a Culture of Awareness in Design,” The Design Journal, vol. 22, sup. 1 (2019): p. 1399-1407. DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2019.1594965.
Ferronato, Priscilla, and L. Mercer, J. Roberts-Smith, and S. Ruecker. “Living Labs and the DH Centre: Lessons for Each Other,” KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies, vol. 3, no. 1 (2019): p.14. DOI:10.5334/kula.46.
Mercer, Lisa. “Experience Design for Reporting Human Trafficking.” Diseña vol. 13 (2018): p. 208-233. DOI: 10.7764/disena.13.208-233.
Chapters
Moses, Terresa Moses, and Lisa Elzey Mercer “Racism Untaught, Learning and Unlearning Racialized Design,” in Design Studies Practice. In press. (London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury, 2022).
Mercer, Lisa, and William Bullock, “Octagonal Research Globe for Prototyping Emergent Immersive Reality Experiences,” in Prototyping Across the Disciplines, p.121-139 (Bristol, United Kingdom: Intellect, 2019).
ISBN: 9781789381801.
Conference Proceedings
Elzey Mercer, Lisa, “Looking Through an Ethical and Equitable Lens at the Constructive Disruption of Design Interventions,” Design, User Experience, and Usability, 13th International Conference, 26th Human Computer Interaction International Conference 2024, p. 174-180. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61362-3.
Thomas, Nekita, and Terresa Moses, Lisa Elzey Mercer, Angelica Sibrian, “Through the Megascope: Reimagining Design Education,” Design Research Conference (2024), page numbers shared once its published.
Elzey Mercer, Lisa, An Ethical & Responsible Lens to the Constructive Disruption of Interventions, 26th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (2024), page numbers shared once its published.
Sibrian, A., Thomas, N., Moses, T.,and Mercer, L.E.(2023) Designing collective racial healing spaces, in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.343, ISBN: 978-1-912294-59-6.
Moses, Terresa, and Lisa Mercer, “We Missed the Mark: The Impacts of Well- Intentioned, but Racist, Design,” Memory Full? Re-imagining the relations between design and history: The Design History Society, (2021).
Mercer, Lisa, and Terresa Moses, “The Ethics and Knowing a Shared Intention in Design,” Cumulus, International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design, and Media, (2021), p. 2058-2065.
Moses, Terresa, and Lisa Mercer, “Racialized Design and Shared Intention,” Participatory Design Conference, (2020), p. 249-251.
Salamanca, Juan and Lisa Mercer, Molly Briggs, “Design for Responsible Innovation,” International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference, (2019), p. 218-229.
Moon, Eunmi, and Lisa Mercer, Deana McDonagh, Sheila Schneider, “Designing for Inclusive Learning Experience,” E3 Universal Design Practice Conference III, Design and Ergonomics, Designing of Inclusive Learning Experience, (2019), p. 138-152. ISBN: 9788891797780.
Mercer, Lisa, and Terresa Moses, “Racism Untaught Workshop Revealing & Unlearning Racialized Design Using Design Research,” Decipher, AIGA Design Educators Research Conference, (2018), p.135-145. ISBN: 9781607856160.
Mercer, Lisa, “Design-led Social Innovation in Human Trafficking,” 21st Academic Design Management Conference, Next Wave, (2018), p. 917-923.
Mercer, Lisa, “Fight Against Human Trafficking,” Unfrozen, Swiss Design Network, Triest Verlag, (2018), p. 173-194.
Mercer, Lisa, “Design-led Interdisciplinary Research for Social Innovation,” Cumulus, International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design, and Media: Diffused Transition & Design Opportunities, (2018), p. 679-686.
Mercer, Lisa, “Riding Shotgun in the Fight Against Human Trafficking,” Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference, (2016), p. 365-378.
Mercer, Lisa, “Operation Compass, Riding Shotgun in the Fight Against Human Trafficking,” Inflection Point Design Research Meets Design Practice, Design Management Institute, (2016), p. 2543-2558.
Mercer, Lisa, “Riding Shotgun. Supporting Truck Drivers with a Method of Anonymously Reporting Incidents of Child Trafficking” Mobility Justice & Sexual Nobilities: 12th Annual Conference International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic, and Mobility, (2014).
2023 © Lisa Elzey Mercer
Homepage Picture Photo Credit: Halee Jane Pratcher