Road Map for the 2017-18 Shapiro Design Lab

The University of Michigan Library's Shapiro Design Lab (SDL) is an ever-evolving experimental space founded on peer learning, engaged learning, and interdisciplinarity. We're hiring four different student positions for the upcoming year. More details and an application are available for each at their respective links. 

Program Assistant (Graduate)

The Lab is hiring two program assistants to help implement the program of the Shapiro Design Lab in 2017-18. More specifically, one will coordinate and supervise Residents and Interns within the Lab, and the other will coordinate and supervise the Student Developers. 



Resident (Graduate)

Residents will receive funding and other support to develop projects related to one of the three themes (see below) and will also help staff our Open Lab hours. 

Intern (Undergraduate)

Interns will help with day-to-day operations of the Lab, staff Open Lab hours, and have the opportunity to lead an area of the Lab, such as a marketing/communications or one of our spaces. 

Student Developer (Graduate + Undergraduate)

Student developers will explore and build experimental software and hardware projects to try out new ideas, tools, and services for the Library. 


As mentioned above, the SDL will focus on specific topics for 2017-18. We're calling these "Labs" as they're an attempt to futher develop a program and community in these areas while also using the Lab spaces as a gathering and practice space. 

Citizen Lab, which will support civic tech and citizen science projects here on campus and in conjunction with communities within and beyond Ann Arbor. The Lab will partner with the Citizen Interaction Design program. 

Game Lab, which will serve as a hub for game developers, designers, and scholars on Central Campus, in conjunction with the Computer Video Game Archive on North campus. We'll have specific equipment (consoles, PCs, and peripherals) for game play and development and host meetups for game scholars, designers, and developers. 

Library Lab, which will experiment with tools, services, and applications for the Library itself, in order to better understand the possibilities of how people can engage with the Library in all its forms. This could be everything from multilingual digital signage to visualizations of Library spaces to large-scale open source projects like Zooniverse.

If you have any questions or ideas about the student positions or the three Labs, please send us a note!