A Note from the Founder

I bring 10+ years of research and design experience across philanthropy, government, education, and international development. The select projects below represent how I work with organizations to help them connect more deeply with the communities they serve.

— Keara

Case Studies

Case Study 01

Family research used to advance policy and inform child-care redesign

Keara provided trauma-informed research design, workshop facilitation, and protocols for engaging low-tech and vulnerable participants in a multiyear study of how families across rural and urban U.S. communities navigate care, safety, and stability.

Keara, founder of The South Design Research Studio, presenting to families during a research session for the safety net redesign study

Impact

The research approach was studied by other civic-tech and human-centered government organizations, used to advocate for family policy in government hearings, and helped lay the foundation for a national survey informing New York’s child-care redesign.

View the project

Case Study 02

A school district expanded language access across 12 home languages

Keara designed and led the research strategy, engaging district leaders, educators, administrators, and families to understand where language access was and was not working.

Keara, founder of The South Design Research Studio, explaining design thinking to a school district team

Impact

Based on discovered insight from the research engagement, the district added Farsi and Pashto to standard family communications, selected a multilingual platform supporting all 12 languages spoken at home, and approved a budget for proactive interpretation services.

View the project

Case Study 03

Research team changed its strategy to include overlooked perspectives

Keara designed and facilitated workshops on positionality, bias, and reflexivity for a social-innovation design team.

Keara, founder of The South Design Research Studio, synthesizing sticky notes with a research team

Impact

The workshops helped the team identify where its own assumptions were shaping the research narrative and revise its strategy to intentionally include family perspectives that had been overlooked. The team later invited Keara to repeat the workshop for government partners.

View the training

Team of Black women collaborating around a table with laptops, discussing research strategy

Is your community research leading to change?

The projects above began with more than a goal to gather insight. They created a clear connection between what communities shared and what organizations did next.

Take the Listening-to-Action Assessment to see where your current approach is strong—and where community input may be losing influence.

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What collaborators say:

  • "Keara has consistently helped keep the team focused on our stated goals when there can be a lot of noise and distraction, especially around humane co-design and user research. I've relied on her for ensuring our work is ethical and accessible — from contributing to our organization's trauma-informed research practice guidelines, to graciously staying longer after a workshop so a participant had time to share their story around extremely difficult experiences. Her ability to work with Spanish-speaking communities has also enriched our findings. I would trust Keara in almost any user research situation."

    — Jessica Weeden, Design Lead, New Practice Lab

  • "I've worked with Keara on multiple projects through the New Practice Lab — both supporting low-income families with young children. She's always able to elevate the original intent and goals so the entire team fulfills our commitments to ourselves and our participants, even as the project evolves. I can rely on her for thoughtful feedback and pushback that makes the work better — especially making sure we work respectfully and with empathy toward our family participants. I would trust her completely to lead, consult on, or realign a research project that needs extra support."

    — Jacklyn Pham, Designer-Communicator, New Practice Lab

  • "Working with Keara at SPARCK has been a huge privilege. Her research knowledge is excellent. She has great empathy and awareness of social justice and the natural world, the complexities that underpin it, and the action required to make substantive change. Keara brings intelligence, humour, and a truly sophisticated perspective to every conversation or project she's involved in."

    — Miriam Vaswani, Lead/Senior Content Designer, SPARCK