Charlotte Burgess-Auburn
Director of Community, Stanford d.school
Raised between two teachers and several nations, after too many cold winters, Charlotte followed the road to the sun and found California. Back on the East Coast her mother taught her that the best thing to do when you want to do something is just to start doing it. She never thought she’d find so many other people who thought the same way, until she found the d.school.
Pulling together careers in theatrical and editorial production, fine art, educational administration and retail, Charlotte has refined these experiences into the subtle and powerful discipline-spanning skills best described as “cat-herding.” Her favorite projects include adapting and directing a production of Alice in Wonderland for high-school students with her best friend Alex Radocchia; building a fountain out of rocks, copper tubing, plaster and lath, glue, and an apollo typewriter all by herself; sewing a $40,000 dress with a team of six people for an opera in Santa Fe; leading 20 students and faculty from the MIT Media Lab with 15 crates of one-off prototypes out in the middle of a blinding snowstorm to a week of live demonstrations, press conferences, and parties at the Tokyo Toy Fair; and traveling to Jordan and to Bhutan with her friend and colleague Michael Hawley to participate in educational outreach. Her enduring goal is to help people realize how easy (and how difficult) it is to collaborate with one another.
To the d.school, Charlotte brings an unrelenting optimism and strong mountain-guiding skills in the face of the normal confusion, chaos, and Everest-sized piles of to-do’s that characterize all worthwhile new endeavors. She fosters community and facilitates communication. She believes in the local power of the individual and the greater power of the collective when inspired by truth. This is hands-down the best job that she has ever had, and she attributes her wonderful experience to the genuine human beings she’s working with.
