Doreen Gehry Nelson, Hon. AIA, is the Founding Director of the Design-Based Learning Project at UCLA’s School of Education & Information Studies–Center X and her archive and oral history are housed at the UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library.
Nelson is a Professor Emerita of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, School of Education and Integrative Studies, where she established a two-year master’s degree program for K–12 teachers, and was an Adjunct Professor at the Cal Poly College of Environmental Design.
An award-winning, 50-year veteran educator, published author in the field of education, and public school K-12 teacher for 15 years, Nelson developed her Design-Based Learning methodology in the 1960s. Named one of 30 top American innovators in education in 1991 by the New York Times, she is the recipient of both the American Institute of Architecture’s prestigious Lifetime Honorary Membership and the California State University’s statewide Wang Award for Excellence in Education.
Nelson has taught her methodology to thousands of educators worldwide, at Harvard, Stanford, and the Smithsonian Institution, London’s Royal College of Art, and Japan’s Sendai Science Museum, and in the computer world, she worked with Apple Computer researchers and contributed to the original Maxis SimCity simulation.
