The Executive Committee is elected every three years at the Society's Annual General Meeting, usually held during the Society's annual conference. The voluntary Executive Committee form the Society's Board of Trustees, and work together to promote and support professional, scholarly work in design history. The Executive Committee invites and welcomes those interested in becoming more involved with the Society to consider joining the Executive Committee. Queries of interest can directed to the DHS Administrator, Jenna Allsopp at designhistorysociety@gmail.com
DHS Trustees must exercise compliance, prudence and duty of care:
- Ensuring that the DHS complies with charity law, and with the requirements of the Charity Commission as regulator; in particular ensuring that the DHS prepares reports on what it has achieved and Annual Returns and accounts as required by law
- Ensuring that the DHS adheres to the requirements set out in its constitution and that it remains true to the charitable purpose and objects set out there.
- Complying with the requirements of other legislation and other regulators (as appropriate), which govern the activities of the DHS.
- Acting with integrity, avoiding any personal conflicts of interest or misuse of DHS funds or assets.
- Ensuring that the DHS is and will remain solvent, using its funds reasonably, and only in furtherance of DHS objectives; avoiding activities that might place the DHS’s funds and reputation at undue risk, and seeking professional advice on all matters where there may be material risk to the DHS, or where the Trustees or other committee members may be in breach of their duties.
Chair of the Design History Society: Sally-Anne Huxtable
Dr Sally-Anne Huxtable is Associate Professor at London Metropolitan University. Sally was previously Head Curator of the National Trust since and is an Honorary Fellow in History of Art at the University of York. Sally is a Co-editor of the Manchester University Press Studies in Design and Material Culture series, and she sits on the advisory board of the Stained Glass Museum. As Chair of the DHS, Sally is an Ex Officio member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Design History and acts as Editor of the Archives, Collections & Curatorship section of the Journal. Sally’s expertise focuses on nineteenth and early twentieth century art, design, and history, and she has a particular interest in the relationship between artistic movements and practice and spiritual and religious belief.
Chair of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Design History: Grace Lees-Maffei
Professor Dr Grace Lees-Maffei MA(RCA) has been a member of the DHs since 1998. She served as Treasurer from 1998-2001 and Event Award Coordinator 2001-2 before joining the Journal of Design History Editorial Board in 2002 as Reviews Editor and Editor (2002-8), Managing Editor (2012-17) and, since 2021 she is Chair of the Editorial Board. Grace is Full Professor of Design History and Programme Director for DHeritage, the Professional Doctorate in Heritage, at the University of Hertfordshire (UK). She is a Full Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Royal Historical Society and AdvanceHE and since 2012, she has been a member of the Peer Review College of the AHRC. Grace researches mediation, heritage, national identity and globalization in design. Grace and Kjetil Fallan (JDH Editorial Board member) are founding Editors of Cultural Histories of Design, a book series published by Bloomsbury.
Treasurer and Digital Secretary: Dora Souza Dias
Dr Dora Souza Dias is a design historian and graphic designer interested in the field of graphic design practice and graphic design history, and in challenging and rethinking some of its traditional definitions. She is currently a Lecturer on Graphic Design Theory and Practice at the University of the Arts London and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Design History of the University of Brighton.
Digital Secretary TBC
Outreach and Membership Officer: Yasmine Nachabe Taan
Dr Yasmine Nachabe Taan is Associate Professor of Art and Design History at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. She holds a PhD in Art History and Communication Studies from McGill University. Her interdisciplinary research cuts across the fields of visual culture, gender politics, photography and design history with a focus on Lebanon and the Middle East. Yasmine is on the advisory board for the journal Design & Culture.
Communications Officer TBC
Grants and Prizes Officer TBC
Teaching, Learning and Continuing Professional Development Officers:
Elli Michaela Young and Fiona Anderson
Dr Fiona Anderson is a Lecturer in Design History and Theory at Glasgow School of Art. She also teaches at Edinburgh College of Art. She is on the Steering Committee of the ‘Tailoring for Women’ research project led by the University of Brighton, which is part of the Apparences, Corps et Societés Research Group based at the University of Lille. Fiona has been a Trustee of the DHS since 2021.
Elli Michaela Young is an independent curator, cultural programmer, researcher, and teacher. She is currently working on her PhD thesis which investigates how fashion and textiles were used in the construction of Jamaican identities during a period of transition from colony to independence (1950-1970). She has a BA in Design from London Metropolitan University and an MA in Postcolonial Cultures and Global Policy from Goldsmiths College. She has lectured at a number of UK universities and designed the University of Brighton’s first African Diaspora Fashion Module. She is currently a visiting lecturer at London Metropolitan University, Central St Martins, London College of Fashion, and Middlesex University and is one of the Teaching and Learning and Continuing Professional Development Officer for the Design History Society and a member of The National Archives User Advisory Group (UAG).
Conference Liaison Officer: Marta Filipová
Marta is an art and design historian based at the Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic. She is the conference liaison officer of the DHS and an editor of the journal ArtEastCentral. In her research, Marta concentrates on the questions of identity, whether political, national or gender, and its relation to modern art and design. Currently she examines this topic looking at exhibitionary cultures and the representation of interwar Czechoslovakia at world’s fairs.
Student Officer (non-Trustee role): Alex Todd
Alex J. Todd is a design historian and educator. His research is broadly concerned with design’s potential as a method of political and cultural opposition, with a particular focus on the post-1960s Netherlands. Currently, Alex is a PhD student in the School of Humanities at the University of Brighton, where he is researching the politics of identity through the work of Dutch graphic design collective Wild Plakken. He also teaches in the History of Art and Design department at Pratt Institute in New York.
Ambassador (non-Trustee role): Alexandra Banister
Alexandra Banister is currently completing her PhD at Oxford Brookes University. Her research thesis, Designing the Domestic: Women’s Writing on Architecture and Design in Interwar Britain, examines women’s voices in the shaping of modernity. Alexandra completed her MA in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art and her BA in History of Art at University College London. Alex currently works for the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and has previously held roles at the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Barbican Centre, and Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Within academic and public practice, Alexandra is particularly interested in uncovering hidden histories, questioning visibility and omissions in the writing of history, and rethinking architectural history from a feminist perspective.
Senior Administrator (paid employee): Jenna Allsopp
Jenna has been the Administrator of the DHS since January 2020. She holds a BA in Fashion and Dress History, an MA in the History of Design and Material Culture, and a PhD is visual cultures, all completed at the University of Brighton. Her PhD thesis explored amateur filmmaking as a practice of neuroqueer refusal at the intersection of queer learning disability. Her BA dissertation was awarded the 2014 DHS Undergraduate Student Essay Prize. She has previously lectured at Northumbria University, University of Brighton and Bath Spa University. Jenna is also Administrator of the journal Critical Social Policy.