Scott Schmidt is a Lecturer at Georgetown University in design management. His work centers on public innovation through the lens of design, policy, and the built environment.
Bringing together research, practice, and teaching, he leads and develops projects where students partner with local communities to design services and experiences for the public good. Examples include a wayfinding system for refugees in Rochester, NY, a placemaking initiative for indigenous peoples in Sitka, AK, an interactive public art installation for the rural community of Van Buren, ME, and a speculative plan for an urban design center in Greenville, SC.
He has served as a visiting researcher at Lancaster University's ImaginationLancaster and research associate at the University of Maryland's Human Computer Interaction Lab. His recent publications include an invited chapter on policy design pedagogy from the Handbook of Policy Teaching and a text entitled The Little Book of Design for Policy.
He is currently an Assistant Editor for the Policy Design and Practice journal, founding Chair for the Design for Policy and Governance Special Interest Group (PoGoSIG) of the Design Research Society, and host of the 'Design for Society' podcast.
Prior to joining academia, he served at several federal government institutions including the US House of Representatives, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Federal Reserve. His tenure centered on leveraging emerging technologies to create a more open and transparent government while considering ethical and policy related effects.
He holds a joint Bachelor's in Communication and Political Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Master's in Public Policy from George Mason University, Master's in Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology, and conducted coursework in urban planning at Universidad de La Habana.