Iterations

The Retrofit Lady | Creative Placemaking & Evidence-Based Design with D.S. Nicholas

In this episode of Drexel’s “Iterations,” we explore housing, creative placemaking, and design with architect and social scientist D.S. Nicholas, founding director of Drexel’s master’s program in Design. Dee describes how her practice has shifted toward health-supportive, human-centered design, culminating in a collaboration called Second Story Collective. Originating in Drexel's Writer's Room, Second Story Collective is an intergenerational housing and arts-based model that helps older adults age in place by pairing them with students, providing mutual support and home retrofits to enhance quality of life - while also addressing gentrification and displacement. We also discuss iterative, community-engaged evaluation, biophilia, and climate preparedness as contributors to human-centered design innovation. Music/sound FX from EpidemicSound

Just a Game | Playful Creation with Frank Lee & Erin Truesdell

We all play. We all like to play - but why? What is it about games that brings us closer together, empowers us, and sparks joy? In this episode we meet Erin Truesdell and professor Frank Lee - researchers and practitioners in the field of game design - about taking play seriously as a tool for education, social connection, and healthcare. They discuss interdisciplinary games research and the application of VR and gaming technology in healthcare settings. They also describe the Skyscraper Games Project, which turns Philadelphia’s Cira Centre into a massive public game display (including a Guinness-recognized Pong installation), and outreach efforts to make game development, STEM, and computing careers more accessible to all communities. Iterations is produced in partnership with Drexel University's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. Learn more about Digital Media at Drexel: https://digm.drexel.edu Learn more about STAR Scholars: https://drexel.edu/pennoni/urep/undergraduate-research/STAR-scholars/ Learn more about Skyscraper Games: https://drexel.edu/news/archive/2025/October/Video-Game-Design-Reaches-New-Heights-in-Skyscaper-Games 00:00 Introduction 01:31 Meet the Researchers 04:32 VR for Healthcare 07:38 Skyscraper Games 14:41 Designing for Wellbeing 19:37 Homework & Closing Music/Sound FX from EpidemicSound

Empathy by Design | Universal Design & Aging with Patricia Moore

In this episode of Iterations, we meet Patricia “Pattie” Moore, whose work and research have dramatically changed the design world. In the late 1970s, she partnered with makeup artist Barbara Kelly to disguise herself as an 85-year-old. Pattie traveled for nearly four years across the US and Canada, gaining fascinating insights about our age-phobic culture. Her research informed influential products and systems, including OXO Good Grips tools, Depend undergarments, and contributions to the Americans with Disabilities Act. She has inspired teaching models like Drexel’s aging-simulation coursework. Pattie also discusses language barriers around “disability,” solo aging and aging in place, home health technologies, and medical-design innovations such as mobile mammography and patient-centered imaging environments. Music from Epidemic Sound

Pins and Needles | Adaptive Fashion Design with Nancy Volpe Beringer

Rethinking Fashion as Access: Nancy Volpe Barringer on Adaptive Design and DignityThis episode of Iterations explores how designer Nancy Volpe Beringer reframes fashion as access, dignity, and independence. Beringer describes her graduate experience at Drexel, the demanding critiques that shaped her, and how physical challenges deepened her sensitivity to exclusion in fashion. She discusses centering underrepresented communities through runway shows and creating The Vault by Volpe Beringer, a luxury designer resale shop offering complimentary adaptive customizations. The episode also traces adaptive clothing to 1950s “Functional Fashions” and highlights Beringer’s view that adaptable construction choices can broaden who garments are made for.

The Body Remembers | Dance as Health Infrastructure with Valerie Ifill

The body as an archive and dance for community storytelling. This is Iterations, a podcast about creativity, design, and the ideas that emerge when disciplines collide. Hosted by Laurel Hostak Jones in partnership with Drexel University's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, Iterations explores how research and practice in the creative disciplines can inform solutions to social and environmental issues. This season, we're looking at the intersection of the arts and health. In episode one: The Body Remembers, dancer, researcher, and assistant professor Valerie Ifill positions dance as infrastructure for health, research, healing, and storytelling. Ifill describes the body as an archive that holds culture, memory, joy, and trauma, and recalls noticing movement’s transformative impact on her mental health as a teenager. She discusses Movement of Mothers, a project where mothers (especially those whose realities are omitted or misrepresented) share stories in circles and translate them into movement, reclaiming bodily agency with care and boundaries. She also co-created Black Girls STEAMing Through Dance, a multidisciplinary program for girls ages 7–13 integrating wearable tech, coding, and choreography to build STEAM confidence and community. Ifill closes with a simple practice: notice how you feel, then try a private two-minute dance.00:00 Health Beyond Hospitals01:39 Meet Valerie Ifill03:37 The Body as Archive04:54 The Transformative Power of Movement06:20 Movement of Mothers09:55 Black Girls STEAMing through Dance13:39 Homework assignment15:39 Closing and Credits