Routes to Design History: Jesse Adams Stein

Welcome to the Design History Society: Routes to Design History podcast series. This series offers a glimpse into the journeys of those who have studied or practice design history, highlighting global perspectives and diverse ways of engaging with the field.

 

In this episode, we speak with Dr Jesse Adams Stein, Director of Design Studies at UTS School of Design. An interdisciplinary design researcher, her work investigates often-overlooked aspects of design: labour, industrial craft, skill, repair, and industries in transition, across both historical and contemporary contexts.

Stein is the author of Hot Metal: Material Culture and Tangible Labour (Manchester UP, 2016) and Industrial Craft in Australia (Palgrave, 2021), and co-editor of two recent Routledge collections on design, labour, and planetary breakdown (2025).

Her current research focuses on the role of installers as key communicators in NSW's energy transition, and examining the history and politics of high-visibility workwear. She is also a long-standing advocate for the right to repair, skilled trades, and industry policy reform, and co-initiated the UTS Repair-Design project in 2019.

 

Active in Australia's public history sector, Stein serves on the History Council of NSW and has collaborated with institutions including Museums Victoria, the Powerhouse, and the National Library of Australia on oral history projects documenting Australian manufacturing, including Reshaping Australian Manufacturing (2017–2019) and Makers, Manufacturers & Designers (2021–2023).

 

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