Connecting design, teaching and technology
De Angela Duff works across university leadership, integrated design and media, and teaching at NYU. At the interview, she describes giving talks and workshops about generative AI alongside organising music symposia. Her work brings technical questions into conversations about creativity, education and how people keep learning.
Keeping your own thinking in the process
Duff proposes starting a task yourself, then using AI as a partner to question or develop the work, before checking and editing the result yourself. She warns against putting your name on unread output. Later she clarifies that, after generating her own ideas, she may ask a tool to identify gaps and then return to independent thinking.
A role that did not exist yet
After engineering school, while studying art, Duff worked as a secretary surrounded by computing manuals. She recalls teaching herself programming and improving office processes. Her managers created an automation role for her and supported further learning. That experience showed her that a career path could include making a new role within an existing organisation. Her account links curiosity with opportunities others helped her develop.