Jesse Adams Stein

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Dr Jesse Adams Stein is an Associate Professor and Program Director of Design Studies at the UTS School of Design, and a leading researcher in design history and design studies. Her research investigates what happens to skill, labour processes and technical knowledge when industries are in transition, particularly in relation to creative industries, local manufacturing and vocational trades. Stein works across both historical and contemporary contexts, bringing historical depth to live policy challenges, including energy transitions, skills shortages, repair economies and the future of work.

Over the past 15 years, Stein has pushed the discipline of design history to take more seriously the skills and experiences of craftspeople, tradespeople (and factory production in general, as part of understanding design). Key works in this vein include Stein's monographs Hot Metal: Material Culture and Tangible Labour (Manchester UP, 2016) and Industrial Craft in Australia (Palgrave, 2021). This historical work often focuses on Australia between the 1970s and the 1990s, examining how design, craft, vocational education and the creative industries were shaped by neoliberal economic restructuring and other policy shifts at the state and federal level.

In more recent research, Stein is co-editor of two collections: Designing through Planetary Breakdown: Locating Material Knowledge and Practical Skill (Routledge 2025) and Working through Planetary Breakdown: Labour, Skill and the Changing Climate (Routledge 2026) both co-edited with Dr Chantel Carr. The latter two publications were the outcome of Stein and Carr's pioneering interdisciplinary symposium on skill, climate change the the future of work, All Hands on Deck (2023, UTS).

Stein completed an ARC DECRA Fellowship in 2025, and a UTS Chancellor's Research Fellowship in 2021. She has led two major national oral history projects collected by the National Library of Australia, and collaborated with Museums Victoria, the Powerhouse and the State Library of NSW, among other cultural institutions. She is an active contributor to right-to-repair advocacy and industry policy discussions in Australia, and a member of the Australian Centre for Public History and the History Council of NSW.

Experience

  • 2025–present
    Senior Lecturer & Director of Design Studies, Faculty of Design & Society
  • 2021–2025
    Senior Lecturer & ARC DECRA Fellow, Faculty of Design & Society
  • 2019–2021
    Senior Lecturer & Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building, UTS
  • 2016–2019
    Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building, UTS
  • 2015–2016
    Faculty Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building, UTS

Education

  • 2014 
    University of Technology Sydney, PhD (Design)
  • 2009 
    School of the Art Institute of Chicago, MA (Design history / art history)
  • 2005 
    University of New South Wales, Bachelor of Art Theory (Hons)

Grants and Contracts

  • 2021
    DECRA
    Role:
    CI
    Funding Source:
    Australian Research Council
  • 2019
    Repair Design: Shared Knowledge & Practice
    Role:
    Funding Source:
    UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building / Project Initiation Grant
  • 2017
    Reshaping Australian Manufacturing Oral History Project
    Role:
    Funding Source:
    Partnership with National Library of Australia
  • 2016
    Role:
    Funding Source:
    UTS Chancellors Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Professional Memberships

  • Design History Society
  • Oral History NSW
  • History Council of NSW
  • Australian Centre for Public History

Contact Jesse for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision