The NC State College of Design is pleased to announce the appointment of Tania Allen as department head of Media Arts, Design and Technology. Allen, who has served in the role on an interim basis, brings a distinguished record of scholarship, research leadership and professional practice to the position.

Allen’s research and scholarship centers on critical cartography and critical mapping as tools for design research, drawing on theories from anthropology, action research, placemaking and participatory design. Through her work, she embraces cartography as a powerful tool while challenging the embedded assumptions within it. 

In addition to her role as professor of design studies in the department of media arts, design and technology, she is co-director of co-lab, a design research group dedicated to critical mapping as a participatory design research tool. Along with her co-director Sara Queen, she authored Beyond the Map: Unpacking Critical Cartography in the Digital Humanities for Visible Language in 2015.

“Tania Allen has demonstrated exceptional leadership and a deep commitment to the intellectual and creative mission of the College of Design,” said Dean Mark Elison Hoversten, PhD. “Her scholarship bridges research, social equity and design practice and I am confident she will continue to advance its excellence and impact.”

Allen is the author of Solving Critical Design Problems: Theory and Practice (2018)  and co-author of a chapter on Confederate memorialization and urban development in Empty Pedestals: Countering Confederate Narratives through Public Design, edited by Kofi Boone and M. Elen Deming. She also co-directed the cross-institutional colloquium Oppressive Infrastructures: Examining Systems of (in)Equity In/Through/By Data in Spring 2023 and organized the 40th Annual National Conference on the Beginning Design Student in 2025. 

A faculty fellow with the Center for Geospatial Analytics, Allen previously served as a faculty fellow in the Office of Faculty Development, and is the recipient of the 2026 Distinguished Undergraduate Professor Award from the Office of Faculty Excellence at NC State. 

Her professional background includes design work at studios in Chicago and Boston, where she developed branding and communications systems for clients including the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Accenture, MIT and Harvard University.