Toban Shadlyn is a strategic designer and educator whose practice bridges design research, public sector innovation, and institutional learning. Her work explores the role of design in navigating complexity, enabling systemic transitions, and fostering cross-sector collaboration.

Over the past decade, she has led large-scale initiatives with governments, philanthropic foundations, and community-based organizations across healthcare, education, public policy, and urban development. A founding member of the Center for Complexity at the Rhode Island School of Design, she helped develop a studio-based model for addressing systemic challenges in service of advancing societal change. She is currently Director of the Master of Strategic Design in Complexity at ELISAVA School of Design and Engineering in Barcelona, and was previously a Partner at Field States, a strategic design studio focused on civic value and place-based transformation.

As an educator, she teaches and lectures internationally, with previous academic appointments at the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Michigan, and ongoing guest roles at institutions including the Royal College of Art in London and the Istituto Europeo di Design in Barcelona.