Partnership Opportunities
HSD is a multidisciplinary program that leverages broad and diverse input to develop new solutions to health challenges. To that end, HSD offers multiple ways that faculty, staff and community colleagues can partner with the program. Partnerships provide ways to engage HSD students in project-based learning and advance two core objectives:
Make a Difference in Key Areas of Study or Practice
Partnerships let colleagues leverage the energy and creativity of students in their academic and professional work, as well as participate in a community of practice that includes aspiring, emerging and experienced designers who can help address unmet needs in a range of fields. Members of that community can access HSD's learning and prototyping facilities as they develop ideas.
Contribute to HSD's Curriculum and Core Mission
Partnerships are a source of real-world design needs that give HSD students unique active learning opportunities in special topics, directed research or core HSD courses. They also grow a community of practice, where faculty, staff and students can explore new questions and seek innovative solutions in the health sciences and adjacent disciplines.
Partnership Models
Partnerships with HSD usually follow one of the following four models:
Project Proposals
In many courses, HSD students have the flexibility to develop their own project ideas or select from a curated list of suggested projects. Contributing to HSD's curated list is a way to bring new ideas and energy to areas of unmet need.
Project Mentoring
Complex problems often require a broad range of expertise to be effectively addressed. For HSD students, that can mean finding mentors to consult as they define problems and prototype solutions. Faculty, staff and community colleagues often have unique stores of knowledge from years of study or experience. As such, HSD welcomes new and experienced mentors who can provide one-time, short-term or ongoing guidance on project components.
Course Instruction
UArizona instructors are welcome to list new courses or cross-list existing courses with significant relevance to health-related design and innovation. Areas of relevance include novel and emerging health technology, human-centered approaches to meeting health care needs, and mixed-methods approaches or convergence research to address complex challenges in human health. Listing or cross-listing courses with HSD gives them visibility through HSD social media and other outreach. Instructors who list or cross-list courses with HSD are also welcome to host them in the HSD suite (subject to space availability).
VIP Team Leadership
In addition to the special topics courses described above, instructors can list or cross-list Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) courses that have significant relevance to the HSD program. VIP is a transformative approach to learning that engages undergraduate and graduate students in long-term, large-scale, multidisciplinary project teams. HSD-affiliated VIP teams have explored a broad range of topics, including AI-mediated health consultations, medical imaging technology development and the redesign of trauma center discharge forms to improve health outcomes.
Establishing a Partnership
Colleagues who are interested in exploring partnership opportunities can email uahsdesign@arizona.edu or contact one of our Core Faculty and Staff.