Deepa Butoliya’s Promotion and Tenure Approved by U-M Regents
The University of Michigan Board of Regents voted to approve Dr. Deepa Butoliya’s promotion to associate professor of art and design at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design on May 21, 2026, recognizing her scholarly excellence and community engagement. With this change, she also received tenure, affirming her lasting contribution to the university and society.
“Earning tenure and becoming an associate professor is deeply validating because it reflects years of commitment to my profession and the field I’ve chosen,” Butoliya said.
Much of Butoliya’s work centers on her original concept, Critical Jugaad, a community-based design practice that advances social justice by highlighting informal and marginalized forms of design. The framework builds on the Hindi term “Jugaad,” which refers to creative problem-solving in resource-limited situations, especially in the Global South. Butoliya describes Critical Jugaad as both a practical method and a critique of resource inequality, challenging dominant Western-centric ideas about design expertise and value by recognizing the creativity and knowledge emerging from marginalized communities in the Global South.
“I began this work as a research project during my doctoral studies, and seeing that research published and recognized is incredibly meaningful,” said Butoliya. “This is a topic that has not really been discussed in design before, so being able to earn tenure based on this work feels especially rewarding.”
Critical Jugaad in Detroit
Rooted in the north end of Detroit, Butoliya’s work begins with trust. In a community where neighbors know each other and formal education is not always accessible, she listens first, learning how residents want to be included before offering any structure or perspective. The approach is genuinely symbiotic: she teaches, but she also learns from the brilliant, resourceful people around her. According to Butoliya, this work must be done in true partnership, not in an extractive way of generating knowledge.
“Design intelligence and knowledge are being practiced everywhere, even by those who are not institutionally trained. Design knowledge exists all around us,” said Butoliya. “Unfortunately, we have been conditioned to reject this knowledge or dismiss it as illegitimate. Yet if you look closely at everyday practices, you will discover vast bodies of wisdom, skills, narratives, and solutions. This will lead you to build relationships within communities and share that knowledge, and that kind of public engagement is what matters most. Above all, these stories must be told from the communities’ own perspectives.
With this mindset, Butoliya has worked for several years to co-create with community members in Detroit. In this situation, Critical Jugaad takes on a distinct form within Detroit’s unique social and economic landscape. Through fieldwork, workshops, exhibitions, and community activities, the project stands as a direct challenge to extractive research practices, offering instead a model built on partnership, dignity, and mutual respect.
As a result of fostering these connections, Butoliya created the 2025 Motown Masala, a co-curated Community Exhibition, and the Communal Design Collective Futures exhibition in 2023. For communities that have been ignored and let down for decades, these collaborative “live exhibitions” represent something new. In this space, design knowledge is recognized not as the exclusive domain of universities or professionals, but as something that has always existed in the everyday creativity, skills, and problem-solving of the people who live there.
Prolific Contributions to the Design Field
Since 2018, Butoliya has earned recognition through peer-reviewed publications and presentations, including three journal articles and four conference papers. Notably, she presented Redefining Design Practice: Post Speculative Critical Design & Critical Jugaad at the Cumulus Conference in Budapest in 2024. She has facilitated eight workshops on Critical Jugaad, biodesign, and just futures in Detroit and hosted numerous national and international panel discussions. Her work has garnered four research grants from the Stamps School’s Detroit Research Development Fund and the U‑M Office of Research Catalyst Fund, underscoring her scholarly impact.
In addition, Butoliya has pursued a wide range of projects related to her scholarly work, including writing a book chapter on Critical Jugaad for the Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design, 2nd edition, and a book chapter entitled “Making Justice and Biodesign, A Pedagogical Approach” for Design and Science.
As one reviewer noted in her application for promotion and tenure, “Overall, Professor Butoliya’s practice-based design research and scholarly publications illustrate the kind of sustained, community-based work that should provide an exemplar to current and future design researchers. Her work has been referenced in several new books by design scholars, and it is starting to be cited more broadly in the design field.”
In 2026, Butoliya’s groundbreaking work was featured as part of the Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series, where her presentation, entitled “Design Beyond the Center: Stories of Jugaad, Resilience, and Collective Knowledge,” was a retrospective of her scholarly and public engagement work that has been the center of her academic career.
Inspirational Educator
Butoliya is a committed educator, serving in several capacities at the Stamps School and at the University, including a recent role with the Faculty Senate.
Working with both graduate and undergraduate students, Butoliya’s teaching approach focuses on helping students see design as both a way of thinking critically and a tool for advancing social justice. Butoliya prepares students to address complex social and technological challenges through courses ranging from industrial design basics to speculative, future-focused design concepts. Her classes combine hands-on making with research through studio projects, fieldwork, workshops, prototyping, and strong analytical writing.
Butoliya’s research is inspiring and original. The international impact of Butoliya’s research was recently highlighted when a department from Swinburne University of Australia, after discovering her pioneering work on critical jugaad, sought her out as an external examiner for one of their PhD student’s thesis. For Butoliya, having her specialty impact a student across the globe is a full-circle moment. “I now feel like an expert, knowing that students and researchers are using Critical Jugaad as part of their own design research,” said Butoliya. “It is encouraging that this work that celebrates unconventional resources and experiences, also to inform the discipline of design, is part of new knowledge that is expanding and helping others.”