Gigi Polo
Gigi Polo is a Dominican-born designer, educator, filmmaker, and practice-based PhD candidate at RMIT University. Her interdisciplinary work bridges visual culture, inclusive education, and speculative design, with a focus on multisensory, brain-based learning environments that support neurodiverse and neurotypical learners alike. Her current research, Osmotic Sensoria, explores how spatial design, AR/VR/MR technologies, and embodied cognition can reimagine educational spaces rooted in equity and neuroinclusion.
Gigi holds a BFA from Parsons School of Design, where she has taught since 2006 and currently serves as a Part-Time Associate Teaching Professor. Her pedagogy blends design theory, social justice, mental health, and language justice across studio, systems thinking, and DEI-driven design courses. She has also taught at Montclair State University, CUNY, LIM College, and internationally at Chavón School of Design and the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) in the Dominican Republic.
She is the author of Second Language Through Design[ing] (2017), a DEI-informed framework that supports multilingual learners in design classrooms, and creator of the Sprint-to-Pacing model for intensive learning—now central to her PhD inquiry. Her conference and publication record includes: Design Principles and Practices (CGScholar), Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design Studies, Spark Journal (UAL), ICDPCA (Paris College of Art), APA, FATE, DeL, MozFest, Sense & Sensibility, eNABLE, and Next School/Atmosphere.
As a filmmaker, Gigi directed Madly Gifted (2013), a documentary on bipolar disorder and creative temperament. The film has been widely screened in the U.S. and abroad and was integrated into the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) Psychiatry Clerkship Curriculum in 2022 as a resource for medical students studying mental health and neurodivergence.
Professionally, she has worked across nonprofit and corporate sectors. From 2021 to 2023, she served as Design Director at Dauphin Americas, leading design services and sustainability initiatives in workplace wellbeing. Today, she leads Gigi Polo Lab, a small research and design practice collaborating with mission-driven organizations focused on inclusion, wellness, and future-facing design.
Gigi’s academic and creative work is deeply invested in redefining access, identity, and neurodiversity in design education through speculative methods and applied research.