Dr Jesse Adams Stein is an Associate Professor and Program Director of Design Studies at the UTS School of Design, and a leading researcher in design history and design studies. Her research investigates what happens to skill, labour processes and technical knowledge when industries are in transition, particularly in relation to creative industries, local manufacturing and vocational trades. Jesse works across both historical and contemporary contexts, bringing historical depth to live policy challenges, including energy transitions, skills shortages, repair economies and the future of work.
Over the past 15 years, Jesse has pushed the discipline of design history to take more seriously the skills and experiences of craftspeople, tradespeople (and factory production in general, as part of understanding design). Key works in this vein include Stein’s monographs Hot Metal: Material Culture and Tangible Labour (Manchester UP, 2016) and Industrial Craft in Australia (Palgrave, 2021). This historical work often focuses on Australia between the 1970s and the 1990s, examining how design, craft, vocational education and the creative industries were shaped by neoliberal economic restructuring and other policy shifts at the state and federal level.
In more recent research, Jesse is co-editor of two collections: Designing through Planetary Breakdown: Locating Material Knowledge and Practical Skill (Routledge 2025) and Working through Planetary Breakdown: Labour, Skill and the Changing Climate (Routledge 2026) both co-edited with Dr Chantel Carr. The latter two publications were the outcome of Stein and Carr’s pioneering interdisciplinary symposium on skill, climate change the the future of work, All Hands on Deck (2023, UTS).
In current projects, Jesse is collaborating with colleagues across UTS, Western Sydney University, the University of Wollongong and NSW DCCEEW on research examining the role of installers in the socio-technical relations of consumer energy resources (CER) in Australian energy transitions.
In a separate interdisciplinary project with co-researchers from the Faculty of Design and Society, and in partnership with the Powerhouse and Transport for NSW, Stein is investigating the history and contemporary politics of high-visibility workwear (hi-vis).
Jesse completed an ARC DECRA Fellowship in 2025, and a UTS Chancellor’s Research Fellowship in 2021. She has led two major national oral history projects collected by the National Library of Australia, and collaborated with Museums Victoria, the Powerhouse and the State Library of NSW, among other cultural institutions. She was the director of the series of public history talks, History Now 2024, in association with the History Council of NSW, UTS and the State Librart of NSW.
Jesse is an active contributor to right-to-repair advocacy and industry policy discussions in Australia, and a member of the Australian Centre for Public History and the History Council of NSW.
Jesse Adams Stein 