Creative Impact Fellow

About the role

MICA's Center for Creative Impact is seeking a graduate student to work as a fellow on a local, field-based, interdisciplinary project focused on increasing safe behaviors of drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists along Falls Road. The Creative Impact Fellow will be part of an interdisciplinary team and participate in a real-world project, engaging with outside partners and community members in Baltimore. They will gain a better understanding of the pedestrian, cyclist, and driver safety issues, and specifically, apply the process of human-centered design to this effort. Project Overview Falls Road has suffered due to poor urban planning, disproportionately impacting poorer local neighborhoods. Specifically looking at the stretch of Falls Road from Chestnut Avenue down to the West Trenton Street Alley, according to census data and the Maryland Highway Safety Office (MHSO) ORIOLE traffic safety composite index, this area faces infrastructure and transportation challenges. Of the area's 18.4K residents, 5.7K (31-33%) live below the poverty line and 13K (71%) are non-white. Additionally, this area recorded 6.4K injury crashes in a six-year period (2018-2023) and averaging 973 total stops each year. The Bike Baltimore counter ( https://streetsofbaltimore.com/counters ) installed in June 2024 by BDOT along Falls Road where it intersects with the Jones Falls Trail gives further insight into this heavily utilized thoroughfare: 31,310 counts (daily average of 153) of bicyclists, pedestrians, and scooters were documented for only in the second half of 2024 (June-December) - this included 62% bicyclists, 29% pedestrians, 9% scooters. In collaboration with local neighborhood partners, and with support from the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) Highway Safety Office, the MICA Center for Creative Impact is facilitating the "Piloting local neighborhood-engaged interventions to increase safety of all road users on Falls Road" project. The project aims to increase safe behaviors of drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists along Falls Road by increasing access to public safety information (through local neighborhood engagement and improved safety signage and wayfinding) and by testing creative safety interventions that will ultimately prevent crashes and dangerous behaviors and incidents, and reduce safety risk factors. Focusing on the heavily-trafficked but aging stretch of the historic Falls Road - from the intersection of Chestnut Avenue and Falls Road in the north down to the intersection of West Trenton Street Alley and Falls Road in the south, the project specifically concentrates on six varied sites along this corridor: Trenton Street Alley & Falls Road Intersection MICA 'Park' Crossing (between Howard St and North Ave bridges along Falls Road) Baltimore Street Car Museum & CSX Bridge Underpass W28th Street Bridge Underpass & MA & PA Railroad Roundhouse Wyman Park Drive Underpass, Horseshoe Falls Crossing, & Jones Falls Trail Intersection Jones Falls Mills Bend at Chestnut Avenue Scope of Work Starting in May 2026, the Creative Impact Fellow will work in a supporting role alongside Steffanie Espat, the Co-Design Lead, of MICA's Center for Creative Impact, our MDOT collaborators, Neighborhood Partners, and other members of the project team to: Utilize the human-centered design (HCD) process and HCD methods to learn about and document long and short-term traffic safety challenges along falls road and design interventions for road-user safety; Use research findings to plan and facilitate ideation sessions; Generate ideas to inform the development and testing of prototypes; Develop prototypes and prototype testing plans, which may utilize qualitative research methods including but not limited to surveys, one-on-one and group interviews, observations, card sorting activities, etc. Help plan and facilitate in-person and virtual project-related community and stakeholder-oriented events and site-specific workshops to test prototypes and gather feedback; Help plan, facilitate, and participate in in-person and virtual planning meetings and shareback sessions; and Engage with people, organizations, institutions, neighborhoods, events, etc. that are also working on road user, pedestrian, and bicycle safety, specifically along the Jones Falls and Falls Road. The Creative Impact Fellow will work on these activities in varying degrees, depending on project timelines and needs. *Human-centered design (HCD) is a collaborative, creative process dedicated to understanding people's needs and designing interventions that better serve people's needs. HCD supplements and enhances existing research and views problems through the perspective of the people directly impacted. HCD is informed b

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