Kyla Fullenwider is an educator, writer, and social designer who studies, communicates, and creates projects that improve the quality of life of communities. Some of this work includes transforming the New York City taxi fleet into a moving garden, distributing over 20 million dollars in grants to communities in need across the US, and developing Etsy.com's first Gross Happiness Index.
Kyla has designed and implemented other programs and projects with the City of New York, the City of Los Angeles, the Baltimore City Health Department, the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, UCLA, GOOD, and the Legacy Foundation among others. A former Fellow in Social Design at the Maryland Institute College of Art and at Project for Public Spaces, her work has been featured in the NY Times, LA Times, NY Magazine, and Fast Company and in case studies authored by the Harvard School of Business and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Her writing has been published by Metropolis Magazine, Next American City, GOOD Magazine, and Outpost Journal, among others. Kyla speaks and lectures on social design at schools and in parks and at other places including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Ashoka Future Forum.
A graduate of Harvard University and the Maryland Institute College of Art, Kyla is a founding partner at Imperative and faculty at MICA and SVA, where she teaches Design for Change and Products of Shared Value. She lives on a quiet block in a busy neighborhood of New York City.