| Initially, Ro was Home
editor for
a San Francisco Bay Area suburban daily. Later, she became a
contributing editor of Designers' West magazine, writing the column
"Design for Special Populations", including children. Her "In My Room
" children's
design column was syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate to
200 newspapers worldwide from the Los Angeles Times and
Chicago Tribune to the Vancouver Sun and Saudi Gazette. Its awards include first place honors from the
National Federation of Press Women, the largest media organization in the
U.S.
The Arizona
design research
and communications firm Living & Learning Environments is owned
and directed by Ro. It was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area by her late business partner Tony
Torrice whose theories about "co-designing
"environments with kids are detailed in the book In My Room:
Designing For and With Children . Co-authored by Ro, the book is endorsed on the jacket by noted child psychologist Lee Salk, Ph.D., who calls the work "an enormous contribution to the
mental health of children and the strengthening of family life." It received top honors from the national press group NFPW.
Ro's column
research
and
interviews with leading children's specialists form the foundation of her solo publishing venture: In My World: Designing Living
& Learning Environments for the Young., published
by John Wiley & Sons. This book and its predecessor led to appearances
on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" and "Oprah"
shows and Lifetime TV's "Our Home
." The author's views on design also have
been the subject of
hundreds of print media features in publications
ranging from Time,
Child and
Better Homes & Gardens magazines, to the New
York Times, Montreal Gazette and San Francisco Examiner newspapers.
Throughout
her career
over 70 national and regional honors have been bestowed
upon her by groups including the International Reading Association,
American Society of Interior Designers, International Furnishings and
Design Association, Dallas Market Center and California Press Women.
CPW singled her out as their 1997 California Communicator of Achievement,
and IFDA's Education Foundation granted her a fellowship to poll youth
worldwide about their room preferences as a way to discover their values. American, French, Russian, Japanese and British youth
participated in the In My Room poll.
Two design symposiums on public
issues have been
coordinated by Ro for the American Society of Interior Designers.
"Design of the Times: The Homeless" roused professionals to
renovate shelters nationwide. "Design of the Times: Day Care
" spurred them to establish day care
interior design guidelines and was acknowledged by the U.S. Department of Education. As
co-chair of The National Task Force on Day Care Interior Design, Ro wrote
its landmark report: Design of the Times: Day Care.
KidSpace Design, the
first online forum dedicated to family design issues, was created and managed by Ro for msn
from 1995 to 1998.
It enabled kids and parents to share customs and concerns from room set-up to
recycling, and reached families on six continents with electronic links to the
rest of the globe.
Ro also
reached worldwide audiences through lectures about design for the young. "Creating KidSpace for Living &
Learning" focused on residential design
that sparks discovery outside the classroom. It features rooms coast to
coast, and spotlighted nationwide designers committed to creating
kids' rooms that inspired and instructed the ones living there.
Currently Ro is the publicist for the memoir "From Under the Russian Snow" by author Michelle A. Carter.
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