Elizabeth “Dori” Tunstall is a design anthropologist, researcher, academic leader, writer, and educator.
She is Dean, Faculty of Design at OCAD University (Ontario College of Art and Design University) in Toronto, Canada and the first black Dean of a Faculty of Design anywhere. Tunstall holds a PhD and an MA in Anthropology from Stanford University [1994–1999] and a BA in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College [1990–1994].
She is interested in human values and design as a manifestation of those values. Tunstall observes that design translates values into tangible experiences and asks others to consider what their values are. In a Design Matters interview with Debbie Millman, Tunstall describes some of the motivations underlying her research and practice. She is trying to use design and design technologies to make values more tangible and apparent to people and believes that design is not all about mass consumption and unbridled capitalism. She suggests values like equality, democracy, fairness, integration, and connection are values that, to some extent, we’ve lost and design can help make those values more tangible and ultimately express how we can use them to make the world a better place.
In 2016 Tunstall spoke about “decolonizing design education” and “respectful design” at the AIGA Design Conference.