Jennifer Rittner is a writer, educator and communications strategist currently serving as Associate Director and Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design, where she had previously served as an adjunct from 2008-2012. From 2016-2021 she served on the faculty in the MFA Products of Design, MA Design Research Writing and Criticism, and BFA Graphic Design and Advertising programs, where she taught courses in design history for writers, design for social value, design and politics, graphic design history, and thesis research and writing. Her research considers the construction of pedagogies that critique the intersections of design and power.

In Spring 2021 she served as Guest Editor for a special issue of CoDesign Collaborative magazine dedicated to critiquing design in and of policing. She was a co-editor of The Black Experience in Design (2022) with Anne Berry and Kelly Walters, and featuring the work of 70 Black educators, designers, artists, and curators. In addition to teaching, Jennifer has worked for a number of design and design-adjacent institutions including Pentagram, Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning and the AIGA. As museum educator at the American Federation of Arts (AFA) in the 1990s, Jennifer led Art Access II, an initiative designed to increase museum attendance among under-served communities through education and community outreach. She earned her M.Ed. in Communication and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University where her thesis, “Space, Time, and Objects” proposed pedagogies of equity and access in the art history curriculum.

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