Maura Shea

Maura Shea is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Design (ID) at Illinois Tech and Co-Director of the Food Systems Action Lab. Her work focuses on civic collaboration, equity, and systemic challenges in community development. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature and Philosophy from Macalester College and an MDes in Visual Tools for Design Research from ID.

Research & Teaching: Maura develops courses on community development frameworks, design research methods, and asset-based community strategies. Her Food Systems Action Lab investigates equitable coordination within food systems to promote justice and sustainability in Chicagoland regions.

Experience: Prior to academia, Maura held leadership roles at IDEO (1999–2008), founded innovation functions at the YMCA of the USA (2008–2016), and served as VP of Innovation at Feeding America (2016 onward). She continues consulting on community systems design.

Labs/Teams: Leads the Food Systems Action Lab, which visualizes systemic connections in food networks to enable collective impact through design.