Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Jain's research focuses on the cultural interests that create "good design." To get at this question, she has researched injury law as a means of understanding when and why objects are understood by courts to have caused injuries, and conversely, when they have not. Think of automobiles, for example. For decades it was just assumed that accidents and injuries were caused by careless driving. Only in the 1960s, due to developments in law, media, and activism, did manufacturers come to have some responsibility for safety. This nexus of social interests thus changed the notion of what counted as adequate car design. She is the author of Injury (Princeton UP, 2007), and several articles available on her Stanford website. At the d.school she teaches Transformative Design.