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Iterations: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Drexel Westphal
Iterations is a podcast exploring how creative research shapes the world we share. Each episode delves into the ideas, practices, and collaborations that drive innovation in the creative industries—revealing how these disciplines intersect with urgent social issues, from community health to cultural preservation. Through conversations with faculty, artists, and community partners, Iterations traces the evolving processes behind creative inquiry and its power to build more connected, equitable futures.From Drexel University's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design.
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- 2 weeks ago34 min
The Poet on the Ship | Creativity & Climate Justice with Ben Kalina and James McKinney
Documentary filmmaker and Drexel professor Ben Kalina links filmmaking with climate concerns and his short Higher Ground - an exploration of chronic flooding and environmental injustice in the Eastwick neighborhood of Philadelphia. Kalina’s film Plan C for Civilization examines solar geoengineering and its ethical dilemmas, urging critical public reasoning and collective agency. Music professor James McKinney discusses using music and multimedia to build empathy, including producing Max Gallagher’s song “The Flood” into a VR experience using Unreal Engine, spatial audio, interactive storytelling, and real flood-risk data.
- Jun 22, 202623 min
Visualizing Health | Photography & Sociology with Kylie Wright
A sociology class about health and disease probably doesn't sound like the obvious setting for an exhibition of experimental photography. But over the course of a term at Drexel, students started translating medical systems, chronic illness, disability, anxiety, care, and survival into images.In this episode of Iterations, we hear about the development of visual literacy - a lifelong practice - and its application in fields as disparate as fine art, health care, and sociology. My guest is Kylie Wright, master printer, photographer, and professor at Drexel University.Music from Epidemic Sound
- Jun 1, 202622 min
The Retrofit Lady | Creative Placemaking & Evidence-Based Design with D.S. Nicholas
In this episode of Drexel’s “Iterations,” we explore housing, creative placemaking, and design with architect and social scientist D.S. Nicholas, founding director of Drexel’s master’s program in Design. Dee describes how her practice has shifted toward health-supportive, human-centered design, culminating in a collaboration called Second Story Collective. Originating in Drexel's Writer's Room, Second Story Collective is an intergenerational housing and arts-based model that helps older adults age in place by pairing them with students, providing mutual support and home retrofits to enhance quality of life - while also addressing gentrification and displacement. We also discuss iterative, community-engaged evaluation, biophilia, and climate preparedness as contributors to human-centered design innovation.Music/sound FX from EpidemicSound
- May 4, 202622 min
Just a Game | Playful Creation with Frank Lee & Erin Truesdell
We all play. We all like to play - but why? What is it about games that brings us closer together, empowers us, and sparks joy?In this episode we meet Erin Truesdell and professor Frank Lee - researchers and practitioners in the field of game design - about taking play seriously as a tool for education, social connection, and healthcare. They discuss interdisciplinary games research and the application of VR and gaming technology in healthcare settings. They also describe the Skyscraper Games Project, which turns Philadelphia’s Cira Centre into a massive public game display (including a Guinness-recognized Pong installation), and outreach efforts to make game development, STEM, and computing careers more accessible to all communities.Iterations is produced in partnership with Drexel University's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design.Learn more about Digital Media at Drexel: https://digm.drexel.eduLearn more about STAR Scholars: https://drexel.edu/pennoni/urep/undergraduate-research/STAR-scholars/Learn more about Skyscraper Games: https://drexel.edu/news/archive/2025/October/Video-Game-Design-Reaches-New-Heights-in-Skyscaper-Games00:00 Introduction 01:31 Meet the Researchers 04:32 VR for Healthcare07:38 Skyscraper Games14:41 Designing for Wellbeing19:37 Homework & ClosingMusic/Sound FX from EpidemicSound
- Apr 13, 202621 min
Empathy by Design | Universal Design & Aging with Patricia Moore
In this episode of Iterations, we meet Patricia “Pattie” Moore, whose work and research have dramatically changed the design world. In the late 1970s, she partnered with makeup artist Barbara Kelly to disguise herself as an 85-year-old. Pattie traveled for nearly four years across the US and Canada, gaining fascinating insights about our age-phobic culture. Her research informed influential products and systems, including OXO Good Grips tools, Depend undergarments, and contributions to the Americans with Disabilities Act. She has inspired teaching models like Drexel’s aging-simulation coursework. Pattie also discusses language barriers around “disability,” solo aging and aging in place, home health technologies, and medical-design innovations such as mobile mammography and patient-centered imaging environments.Music from Epidemic Sound
- Apr 6, 202612 min
Pins and Needles | Adaptive Fashion Design with Nancy Volpe Beringer
Rethinking Fashion as Access: Nancy Volpe Barringer on Adaptive Design and DignityThis episode of Iterations explores how designer Nancy Volpe Beringer reframes fashion as access, dignity, and independence. Beringer describes her graduate experience at Drexel, the demanding critiques that shaped her, and how physical challenges deepened her sensitivity to exclusion in fashion. She discusses centering underrepresented communities through runway shows and creating The Vault by Volpe Beringer, a luxury designer resale shop offering complimentary adaptive customizations. The episode also traces adaptive clothing to 1950s “Functional Fashions” and highlights Beringer’s view that adaptable construction choices can broaden who garments are made for.
- Mar 30, 202617 min
The Body Remembers | Dance as Health Infrastructure with Valerie Ifill
The body as an archive and dance for community storytelling.This is Iterations, a podcast about creativity, design, and the ideas that emerge when disciplines collide. Hosted by Laurel Hostak Jones in partnership with Drexel University's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, Iterations explores how research and practice in the creative disciplines can inform solutions to social and environmental issues.This season, we're looking at the intersection of the arts and health. In episode one: The Body Remembers, dancer, researcher, and assistant professor Valerie Ifill positions dance as infrastructure for health, research, healing, and storytelling. Ifill describes the body as an archive that holds culture, memory, joy, and trauma, and recalls noticing movement’s transformative impact on her mental health as a teenager. She discusses Movement of Mothers, a project where mothers (especially those whose realities are omitted or misrepresented) share stories in circles and translate them into movement, reclaiming bodily agency with care and boundaries. She also co-created Black Girls STEAMing Through Dance, a multidisciplinary program for girls ages 7–13 integrating wearable tech, coding, and choreography to build STEAM confidence and community. Ifill closes with a simple practice: notice how you feel, then try a private two-minute dance.00:00 Health Beyond Hospitals01:39 Meet Valerie Ifill03:37 The Body as Archive04:54 The Transformative Power of Movement06:20 Movement of Mothers09:55 Black Girls STEAMing through Dance13:39 Homework assignment15:39 Closing and Credits
- Dec 18, 20252 min
Season One Trailer | Iterations: Creative Research in Motion
Coming in 2026 from Drexel University's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design.Iterations is a podcast exploring how the disciplines ofdesign, media, entertainment, and the arts shape the world we share.A season about the spaces we inhabit… the stories we tell…and the futures we imagine when creativity meets care.In Season One, we sit down with dancers, designers,filmmakers, architects, and artists who are rebuilding the world from the inside out, challenging what health is, and what it could be.From embodiment and movement… to the politics of the builtenvironment… to disability frameworks and the power of representation… these conversations trace the pulse between art and wellbeing.This season isn’t about answers.It’s about openings.New ways of seeing — and sensing — the world around us.Join us for Iterations: Creative Research in Motion,Season One.Where creativity becomes a catalyst for equity, and the nextversion of the world is always in progress. Iterations: Creative Research in Motion is producedby Laurel Hostak Jones and the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. Recorded at the Content Creation Studio of Drexel’s Department of Cinema & Television. Trailer music: Meeting of the Minds by Scientific, viaEpidemic Sound.
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About Iterations
Iterations is a podcast exploring how creative research shapes the world we share. Each episode delves into the ideas, practices, and collaborations that drive innovation in the creative industries—revealing how these disciplines intersect with urgent social issues, from community health to cultural preservation. Through conversations with faculty, artists, and community partners, Iterations traces the evolving processes behind creative inquiry and its power to build more connected, equitable futures.From Drexel University's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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