For nearly five decades, Patricia Moore, Designer & Gerontologist, has embraced the challenge of Designing For All as the mandate of her storied career. The 2019 recipient of the National Design Award, as “Design Mind,” Moore is celebrated for her singular efforts to recognize people of all ages and abilities as equal in their right for the highest quality of life, by Design.
The “Mother of Empathy,” Moore undertook a daring and exceptional experiment traveling throughout the United States and Canada disguised as women more than eighty years of age from 1979 through 1982. With her body altered to simulate the normal sensory changes associated with aging, Moore was able to respond to people, products, and environments as an elder.
In 2000, a consortium of news editors named her as one of The 100 Most Important Women in America. ABC World News featured Moore as one of 50 Americans Defining the New Millennium. ID Magazine selected Moore as one of The 40 Most Socially Conscious Designers in the world. In 2012 she was inducted into The Rochester Institute of Technology’s “INNOVATORS Hall of Fame” and named a Doctor of Fine Arts by Syracuse University for serving as a “guiding force for a more humane and livable world, blazing a path for inclusiveness, as a true leader in the movement of Universal Design.” Hasselt University in Belgium awarded Moore a PhD in May 2019 for her efforts towards “Inclusion and Excellence.”