Welcome to new DHS Trustees

30 November 2023

The Design History Society has recently welcomed new members to its Executive Committee.

Anna Talley has joined the team as Digital Secretary. Anna is a design historian and researcher focusing on modern and contemporary material culture, particularly product, digital and communication design. Anna is currently undertaking her doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh, funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities/ UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. She holds a BFA in Art and Design History from the Pratt Institute and an MA from the V&A/Royal College of Art in Design History and Material Culture. Anna was a co-founder of Design in Quarantine, a digital archive of design responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was awarded the Design History Society’s 2020 Virtual Design History Student Award and received international press coverage. As a freelance writer, Anna’s work has been published in Design Observer, AIGA’s Eye On Design, the New York Review of Architecture, AN Interior, WHITEHOT Magazine, MODERN Magazine, and The Magazine ANTIQUES. Anna also has experience working with cultural heritage institutions in the US and UK, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

We have also welcomed Alex Banister as Communications Officer. Alex was formerly an Ambassador for the Society and 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 has previously worked for the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Royal Academy of Arts, and Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Within academic and public practice, she is particularly interested in uncovering hidden histories, questioning visibility and omissions in the writing of history, and rethinking architectural history from a feminist perspective.

Dr Elli Michaela Young has been appointed Grants and Prizes Officer. ​An independent curator, cultural programmer, researcher, and teacher, Elli’s research 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).

We thank our outgoing Teaching and Learning Officer Dr Fiona Anderson for her work as a Trustee of the DHS since 2021, and welcome Deepika Srivastava as Officer from January 2024. Deepika is an Ahmedabad-based design historian with experience across crafts, museums, and contemporary design and architecture. Her degrees are in Interior Design (bachelor's from CEPT University, Ahmedabad), and History of Design (MA from The Royal College of Art, London). She is currently working as an Independent Consultant with the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, on crafts sector and curatorial projects and has also been Visiting Faculty in teaching design history courses across departments at NID and other universities as well. Some of her research interests as a design historian are: mediation of interior design in post-liberalised India and social and collaborative nature of architectural production. She has presented her research at a seminar of the Design History Society and most recently at the What Futures for Design History? conference organised by the Italian Association of Design Historians in Politecnico di Milano. She is also developing a column, 'Looking beyond the architect' for an Indian media publication, ArchitectureLive!, where she will be profiling architecture practices across India to further probe this aspect of collaboration.

Lastly, Dr Jenna Allsopp has been promoted to the Society’s Senior Administrator. Jenna has worked for the DHS since January 2020 and holds a BA in Fashion and Dress History, an MA in the History of Design and Material Culture, and a PhD is visual culture, 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 and Trustee of the Young Women's Film Academy.