SIGD Faculty Member Recognized by IDSA

IDSA’s 20/2X Recognition Program recognizes professional, young professional and affiliate members who have dedicated their time and talents to the betterment of IDSA and advance the industrial design profession through information, education, community and advocacy.

Shortly before arriving at Auburn, Paepcke-Hjeltness organized IDSA’s 2023 Education Symposium.

“I have been involved with IDSA for quite some time,” Paepcke-Hjeltness said, “I’ve organized several Education Symposiums, served on the IDSA board and spoken at the 2023 Women in Design Deep Dive event.”

A native of Germany, Paepcke-Hjeltness received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Industrial and Environmental Design at Potsdam’s University of Applied Sciences. She came to the United States to get her Master of Fine Arts from The Ohio State University, which she received in 2003.

Since then, Paepcke-Hjeltness has served on the design faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, Drexel University, the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and Iowa State, before arriving at Auburn in Fall of 2023.

Paepcke-Hjeltness is known internationally as a visual strategist, and she frequently organizes and presents workshops and retreats on sketchnoting—a process commonly referred to as “visual note taking” she says—design planning and strategic planning in both academia and industry. She has worked in both the U.S. and Germany as an industrial designer with a focus on aviation and transportation design. Paepcke-Hjeltness serves on the Board of Trustees of the Design Foundation.

Her research is focused on the diffusion of design thinking in both design-  and non-design-oriented disciplines, with an emphasis on exploring visualization as a path to learning, comprehension and creative comprehension.

Paepcke-Hjeltness is pleased to be on the Plains and emphasizes the value of the SIGD faculty’s rich history of dedicated service.

“Many faculty members have been at Auburn for a substantial period, a testament to their passion for and belief in an Auburn industrial design education,” she shared. “It’s such a supportive, tight-knit faculty group. They are open-minded, kind, respectful. I absolutely could not be happier than being here at Auburn.”