ERICSINGLETON
Strategist · Researcher · Designer
I am a strategist, researcher, and designer living in San Francisco. I’m interested in how institutions fund, learn, decide, and build.
I’ve worked across community foundation grantmaking, global reproductive health, international climate advocacy, Indigenous data sovereignty in the age of AI, and global design innovation. Across that work, I’ve become convinced that strategy is stronger when you build it the way designers do: start with the real needs of the people closest to the problem, translate what you learn into insights and possible directions, then make the thing. Sometimes that thing is a funding strategy or an operating model. Sometimes it’s a working prototype.
After seven years in philanthropy, I completed an MS in Design at Stanford to deepen that practice. Today I work across portfolio strategy, human-centered research, research operations, and AI tools built and tested with the people meant to use them. I also teach needfinding at the Stanford d.school.
Currently: Conducting design research with Dabble Design Studio for an early-stage Monterey County news venture, developing and testing new products and revenue models for how local news is discovered, experienced, and sustained.
Featured Work
Jump to all projects
Innovation Playground
Applied DesignA design studio I created and directed for 150 students, 24 teams, and 12 coaches in Karachi.
HELIOS Lab, Stanford Medicine
Applied Design30+ ethnographic interviews shaping practical AI-powered governance tools in service of a Great Plains Tribal Nation.
Reproductive Health Strategy
Philanthropy & StrategyA six-year, $8M safe-abortion strategy built with partners across Nepal and endorsed by the Ministry of Health.
The Cutting E.D.G.E.
Applied Design25 hand-turned objects, 25 AI agents, and a citywide experiment in bringing San Francisco queer history back into the street.
Design in Systems
Applied Design1,600+ conference papers, 890+ courses, and 240+ journal articles synthesized into an 80-page publication on where design is heading.
Youth-Led Program Design
Philanthropy & StrategyAn open-call grant process that drew 400+ applications from youth-led Indonesian climate movements and expanded reach beyond invitation-only networks.
More Work
We’ll Never Have That Recipe Again
Applied Design3,000 risograph tiles honoring queer lives lost to the AIDS epidemic.
Moments of Drag
Applied DesignAn interactive time(piece) exploring temporal drag.
Afterglow
Applied DesignA speculative artifact depicting disco's lost future.
Civic Engagement Agenda
Philanthropy & Strategy36 conversations with 400+ residents across nine counties, translated into a report that informed a $16M grantmaking strategy.
Woodworking
TinkeringHand-turned and milled wooden objects made with lurve.
Prints
TinkeringRisograph and letterpress prints, made at Stanford's Community Print Shop.
All Projects
Seven years of philanthropy, two years of design school, and a lifetime of varying pursuits, organized in three groups: philanthropy & strategy, applied design, and tinkering.
Reproductive Health Strategy
Building Nepal's Vision of Success · 2018–21
Design sprints with partners across Nepal, turned into a six-year, $8M strategy for safe abortion access that the Ministry of Health endorsed and owned.
Youth-Led Program Design
An Open Call for Indonesian Climate Movements · 2023–24
Helped launch an open-call grant process at the Packard Foundation that drew 400+ applications from youth-led climate movements in Indonesia.
Civic Engagement Agenda
Community Conversations Informing a $16M Strategy · 2017–18
36 community conversations across nine South Carolina counties, synthesized into the published report that guided the Coastal Community Foundation's $16M grantmaking strategy.
HELIOS Lab, Stanford Medicine
Research Governance in the Age of AI · 2024–present
30+ ethnographic interviews on AI in biomedical research, turned into governance tools for a Great Plains Tribal Nation, starting with a consent-review tool that keeps every document on Tribal hardware.
Innovation Playground
A summer school program designed for Habib University in Karachi · 2026
Created and directed an eight-session design studio at Habib University in Karachi: 150 students, 24 teams, 12 coaches. Invited back for 2027.
The Cutting E.D.G.E.
Enliven Discourse through Grounded Experience · 2026
My MS thesis: 25 hand-turned figurines with embedded AI characters, each carrying a site of San Francisco's queer history, circulating in five US states.
Design in Systems
An Emergent Paradigm Shift in Research & Practice · 2025
1,600+ papers synthesized into an 80-page publication for the Taiwan Design Research Institute. Don Norman calls it “a valuable contribution for all designers.”
We’ll Never Have That Recipe Again
Stanford d.school Personal Statement · 2026
3,000 risograph printed tiles nailed onto a wood canvas, in memory of queer lives lost to the AIDS epidemic.
Moments of Drag
A time(piece) on Queer Temporal Drag · 2024
An interactive installation at the Stanford d.school: pick a card, reach through the curtain, and a real hand from the past takes yours.
Afterglow
A Speculative Artifact Depicting Disco’s Lost Future · 2025
Sandcast bronze and welded steel, torched outside and mirror-polished inside: disco preserved against the night 50,000 people burned its records.