Katrina Lewis
Associate Professor
Interior Architecture & Industrial Design
2104 Seaton Hall
920 N Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
Manhattan, KS 66506
T: (785) 532-5992
Katrina M. Lewis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Interior Architecture and Industrial Design at Kansas State University, where she has taught since 2001 and has been engaged in design education at the college level since 1998. She earned her Bachelor of Interior Architecture in 1998 and her Master of Regional and Community Planning in 2001 from Kansas State University.
Lewis brings a unique perspective to design education first shaped by living abroad as a teenager and young adult then later through extensive international teaching experiences. Her work has taken her beyond the United States to teach at Chongqing Jinazhu University in the People’s Republic of China, Kabul University in Afghanistan, and the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh. These experiences have deeply informed her teaching philosophy, emphasizing cultural exchange, adaptability, and the role of design in addressing complex contexts.
In 2014, Lewis was awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor. In recognition of her exceptional commitment to undergraduate education, she was named the 2020 recipient of the Commerce Bank and W. T. Kemper Foundation Undergraduate Outstanding Teaching Award, Kansas State University’s highest honor for undergraduate teaching.
Lewis’s scholarly and creative interests center on beginning design pedagogy and the intersection of design and peace. Her work explores how design education can foster empathy, peacebuilding, and understanding. In 2012, she was named a Rotary Peace Fellow for professional studies in peace and conflict resolution at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. This experience continues to inform her teaching philosophy and research pursuits.
Outside the classroom, Lewis finds creative expression through travel, reading, sketching, beading, and fiber arts, pursuits that continue to inform her teaching, research, and design thinking. Through her teaching, scholarly engagement, and creative endeavors, she inspires students to view design as a powerful tool for connection, awareness, and positive change.