Affiliations
↗ PHL Service Design Studio
↗ Moltoduō Studio
Andrea Ngan (she/her/hers) is an organizational leader, design strategist, and co-design facilitator whose practices nurture collective power and mutual care.
With over 15 years of experience leading social impact and participatory design initiatives, she has founded and stewarded programs including The Periscope Summer Urban Laboratories, Creative Resilience Collective, and Design Justice Philly Node.
As the current Director of Community Co-Design at the City of Philadelphia’s PHL Service Design Studio, Andrea develops strategies, standards, evaluative frameworks, operational frameworks, playbooks, and practices that embed co-design into public service delivery.
Speaking engagements
June 2025 – Cambridge, MASpeaker: Youth-Led Art and Healing Justice
MIT Media Lab Lifelong Kindergarten Group
May 30, 2025 – Washington DC Workshop: Service standards for a more accessible and responsive local government
Code for America Summit Demo Lab
January 2024 – Virtual from Philadelphia, PACo-Presenter: Building Trust and Collaborating with Communities in the City of Philadelphia
Service Design in Government
November 2023 – Virtual from Philadelphia, PA and Washington, DC Co-Speaker: Building Trust and Collaborating with Communities in the City of Philadelphia
Georgetown University Beeck Center Social Impact + Innovation Digital Service Network Virtual Event
October 2023 – Virtual from Philadelphia, PACo-Speaker: International Smart & Healthy Cities Symposium on Enhancing Cities in Equitable Ways
Institute for Smart & Healthy Cities at Thomas Jefferson University
June 2023 – Brooklyn, NYSpeaker: Healing-centered art and design: a practice for personal and collective transformation
HASTAC Critical Making & Social Justice at Pratt University
March 2023 – Virtual from Lexington, KY and Philadelphia, PAPanelist: Visual Practices and Experimental Geographies
University of Kentucky Cooperative for the Humanities and Social Sciences
March 2023 — Virtual from Philadelphia, PA
Panelist, The Panelist: Dogma of Individualism panel moderated by Alba Villamil
HmntyCntrd, Critical UX: Challenging the Dogma of UX
November 2022 – Philadelphia, PA
Guest lecture: Course on Feminism and the Internet by Prof. Jessa Lingel
University of Pennsylvania: Annenberg School for Communication
October 2022 – Virtual from Philadelphia, PA
Co-Speaker: The Equitable Community Engagement Toolkit: Towards a Shared Vision and Practice
Design Philadelphia Festival
April 2022 – New York, NY
Guest lecture: Course on CD Methods and Practices by Prof. Kimberly Gim
Parsons School of Design MPS Communication Design
May 2022 – Philadelphia, PA
Speaker: Designing Equitable Programs Lunch & Learn
The Nonprofit Center
January 2022 – Virtual from Toronto, ON and Philadelphia, PA
Speaker: Shaping Change: Gifts of Uncertainty
DesignTO Symposium: No Such Thing as Normal
January 2022 – Virtual from New York, NY and Philadelphia, PA
Panel Moderator: Making a Seat at the Table with Katie Lee and Lynn Kiang
AIGA NY with Dome
June 2021 – Virtual from San Francisco, CA and Philadelphia, PA
Co-Speaker: Building a Practice of Equity-Centered Design with the PHL Service Design Studio
Code for America Summit
April 2021 – Baltimore, MA and Philadelphia, PA
Panelist: Design Justice - Building New Futures at the Intersection of Design + Social Justice
Maryland Institute College of Art Mixed Media Speakers series
February 2021 – Virtual from Baltimore, MD and Philadelphia, PA
Co-Speaker: Design for Breakfast featuring the Service Design Studio
Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Performance & Innovation
November 2020 – Virtual from Athena, GA and Philadelphia, PA
Co-Speaker: On Staying Together - A Collective Art and Design Practice in Pursuit of Healing Justice with Creative Resilience Collective
University of Georgia Athens
October 2020 – Virtual from Philadelphia, PA
Co-Speaker: Service Design in Government: For the people, by the people
Design Philadelphia Festival
November 2019 – New York, NY
Workshop Co-Facilitator: Creative Resilience Collective as a form of speculative design
Columbia University: Synapsis Journal
April 2019 – Philadelphia, PA
Co-Panelist: Practices in Collective Care with Creative Resilience Collective facilitated and curated by Theo Loftis featuring Andrea Ngan, Li Sumpter, and LaTreice Branson
Common Field 2019 Convening – Report from the Field
April 2019 – Philadelphia, PAGuest lecture: Sébastien Derenoncourt’s course on Art of the Web
University of Pennsylvania: Weitzman School of Design
April 2019 – Columbus, OHCo-Speaker: Spatial Literacy and Sustainable Social Practices... organized by James A. Enos
Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE) Conference
November 2018 – Philadelphia, PA
Guest lecturer: Course on Ghost in the Machine by Prof. Timothy Belknap
Temple University’s Tyler School of Art