Sarah Lowe
Director, Professor
Sarah Lowe is the Director of the School of Design in the College of Architecture and Design. She began this role in 2020 upon successfully shepherding the BFA in Graphic Design program move from the School of Art to the newly formed School of Design. In this position, she has established a first-year foundations program, launched a Minor of Graphic Design Studies for the university population, and worked to augment student experiences by offsetting costs and improving access to design resources.
As a professor, her research has focused on the development of mobile platforms designed to interpret sites of cultural heritage. This has led to collaborations with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the National Park Service, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians for which she was awarded a Fulbright Research award to Oslo, Norway to research the design of educational technologies in relation to learning theory. Her work has been presented at AIGA Design Education conferences, CUMULUS, The Norwegian Design Research Network (NORDES), The Museum Computer Network (MCN), and published in Visible Language.
Her current research centers on design in healthcare in collaboration with the College of Nursing. She is a lead member of the Health, Innovation, Technology, and Simulation (HITS) research lab at the University of Tennessee and currently collaborating on SmartShots, a digital tool for lowering barriers to immunization for Tennessee citizens aged 0-24 months.
