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Center for Design

The Center for Design is Northeastern’s platform for interdisciplinary design research; it’s a space for collaborative research activities and a hub for connecting the actors of the design eco-system. It aims at sharing knowledge and practices, shaping common tools and methods, strengthening a unified disciplinary ground. Explore Center for Design faculty, researchers, affiliate members, and partners in industry, academia, and more.

Leadership

Paolo Ciuccarelli
Director, Professor
[email protected]
Estefania Ciliotta Chehade
Associate Director
[email protected]

Staff

Julie Farkas
Communications Specialist
[email protected]
Leah Guo

Center for Design Co-op Student
[email protected]

Core Faculty Members

Pedro M. Cruz
Associate Professor
[email protected]
Laura Forlano
Professor
[email protected]
Casper Harteveld
Professor, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs
[email protected]
Miso Kim
Director of CAMD Masters Programs, Associate Professor
[email protected]
Kristian Kloeckl
Associate Professor
[email protected]
Michael Arnold Mages
Associate Professor, Interim Chair
[email protected]
Mark Sivak
Creative Media Division Head, Teaching Professor
[email protected]

Affiliate Members

Brian Ball

Head of Faculty and Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, New College of the Humanities
[email protected]
Rahul Bhargava
Associate Professor
[email protected]
Sofía Bosch Gómez
Assistant Professor
[email protected]
Toby Chai

Lecturer of Design and Associate Director for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, NU London
[email protected]
Hugh Dubberly

Dubberly Design Office
Nathan Felde
Professor
[email protected]
Michael Frengel
Associate Teaching Professor
[email protected]
Sofie Hodara
Associate Teaching Professor
[email protected]
Aleksandra Jakubowski

Assistant Professor of Health Sciences and Economics, Bouve College of Health Sciences & CSSH
[email protected]

Sara Jensen Carr
Associate Professor, Undergraduate Programs Coordinator
[email protected]
Paul Kahn
Lecturer
[email protected]
Christopher Le Dantec
Professor
[email protected]
Sara Lenzi

Ikerbasque Research Fellow at DeustoTech
Todd Linkner
Associate Teaching Professor
[email protected]
Tucker Marion

Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation, D'Amore-McKim School of Business
[email protected]
Susan Mello
Associate Professor, Interim Department Chair
[email protected]
Najla Mouchrek
Associate Teaching Professor
[email protected]
Herman Saksono

Assistant Professor of Public Health and Health Sciences, Bouvé College of Health Sciences
[email protected]

Katherine Simmonds

Clinical Professor & Associate Director of Health Programs, The Roux Institute
[email protected]
Lena Vassilev

Head of Design and Communication Studies, NU London
[email protected]
Stephen Wood

Associate Clinical Professor and Program Director, Bouvé College of Health Sciences
[email protected]
Victor Zappi
Associate Professor
[email protected]

Bridges Fellows

Alpha Yacob Arsano
Assistant Professor
[email protected]
Myojung Chung
Associate Professor, Interim Associate Dean of Graduate Programs
[email protected]

Students-in-Residence

Jacopo Conti

Cultivating Packaging
Marco Galli

Cultivating Packaging
Annabelle Nolan

Cultivating Packaging
Noufou Sasso

Cultivating Packaging
Zula Westendorf

A Cycle-Specific Health Wearable: Validating Women's Experiences Through Data

“Banca Intesa is a part of the big international group Intesa Sanpaolo, one of the leading Euro zone banking groups, and the strongest one in Italy. Following its parent company’s structure, Banca Intesa applies the division business model, implying organizational divisions according to client type, with centralized business support services.”

Banca Intesa

“Formerly known as Design Museum Everywhere, Co-Design Collaborative curates and produces design-centered exhibitions, publications, and educational initiatives for creative problem solvers of all ages and career levels. Started in Boston by two designers, we are now a remote-first nonprofit with core communities in Boston, Portland (Oregon), San Francisco, New York City, and beyond.

We believe that design is everywhere. We are a community motivated by curiosity, collaboration, and co-creation. While many of members are designers, much of our community consists of educators, activists, and creative professionals who are not “designers” in the traditional sense, but are connected in their desire to design for a better world.

Our programs and resources highlight innovations in design and social change within four key impact areas: Community, Workplace, Education, and the Environment.”

Co-Design Collaborative

“The Office of Participatory Budgeting provides an official point of entry for Boston residents to contribute to the city’s budget process.

The Office of Participatory Budgeting (OPB) advances its mission by:

Furthering public engagement and direct democratic involvement;
Building collective capacity on issues of racial and social justice; and,
Aligning with the City’s goal of achieving and embedding equity and inclusion into City practices.”

Learn More

“We collaborate across disciplines + engage communities for justice-forward responses to the global climate crisis.”

Creative Climate Lab

“The DRS is the longest established, multi-disciplinary worldwide society for the design research community. […] The purpose of the DRS, as embodied in its first statement of rules, was to promote the study of and research into the process of designing in all its many fields.”

Design Research Society

“DensityDesign is a research lab at the Design Department in Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Our research revolves around information visualization, tackling the design challenges arising from the visual exploration and communication of social and cultural phenomena.”

Density Design Lab

“Dubberly Design Office (DDO) is focused on making hardware, software, and services easier to use. Our practice is also known for excellence in information design, especially for using concept maps to represent complex topics and processes from Java and the Internet Domain Name System (DNS) to Heart Attacks and Play. We like making complex information clear and seek out complex projects.”

Dubberly Design Office

“As an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution founded in 1929, JAX leverages its unique combination of research, education, and resources to achieve its mission: to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in its shared quest to improve human health.”

The Jackson Laboratory

“We are a Community Health Center providing medical, dental, prescription assistance, counseling, and wellness services in Knox County. We believe everyone deserves access to quality care!”

Learn More

“Loud Numbers is a data sonification podcast, created by Duncan Geere and Miriam Quick. Data sonification is the process of turning data into sound, and we take it a step further by turning those sounds into music. In each episode, we introduce a data story, explain how we sonified it, and then play the sonification we’ve created.”

Loud Numbers

“Like all platforms for experimentation, metaLAB is less a destination than a perpetual work in progress. Rooted in the arts and humanities, straddling scholarly, critical, and creative practice, it is a community of scholars, designers, artists, makers, technologists, curators, and educators dedicated to modeling new forms of cultural communication, creative and critical practice, and knowledge production.”

metaLab Harvard

“Politecnico di Milano is a public scientific-technological university which trains engineers, architects and industrial designers. The University has always focused on the quality and innovation of its teaching and research, developing a fruitful relationship with business and productive world by means of experimental research and technological transfer.”

Politecnico di Milano

“Politecnico di Torino is a “Research University” that is particularly focused on the balanced development of fundamental and applied research. The departments coordinate research in four macro- areas: Industrial Engineering; Information Technologies; Management and Mathematics for Engineering; Civil and Environmental Engineering, Architecture and Industrial Design. “

Politecnico di Torino

Sofía Bosch Gómez
Assistant Professor of Art + Design, CAMD
Co-Designing a Network of Public Sector Design Scholars and Practitioners in Latin America

Sankalp Bhatnagar
NuLawLab, Library Innovation Lab, metaLAB
Piloting and Evaluating a Casebook for New Legal Imagination

Beth E. Molnar
Program Director of the PhD Program in Population Health; Professor of Public Health and Health Sciences, Bouvé College of Health Sciences
TEAM Health: Technology-Enhanced Approaches to Mental Health Navigation in Families with Young Children

Pierre-Valery Njenji Tchetgen
Assistant Professor of Music and Art + Design, CAMD
A Co-Design Approach to Developing Children’s Literacy and STEAM Skils Through Digital Drum Talk

Amelie Eng
BS in Computer Science and Design, Khoury College and CAMD
From Civic to Clinical: A Data Design Residency

Urooj Haider
MFA in Experience Design, CAMD
Trolls, Trash & Transformation

Ishita Khurana
MS in Product Development, College of Engineering
Trolls, Trash & Transformation

Cristhel Santillan
MS in Experience Design, CAMD
Trolls, Trash & Transformation

Urooj Haider
MFA in Experience Design, CAMD
Trolls, Trash & Transformation

Ishita Khurana
MS in Product Development, College of Engineering
Trolls, Trash & Transformation

Cristhel Santillan
MS in Experience Design, CAMD
Trolls, Trash & Transformation

Previous Affiliate Members

William Albert, UX Researcher
Jeanette Andrews, Magician and Speaker
Massimo Bianchini, Politecnico di Milano
Sara Colombo, Eindhoven University of Technology
Andrea Cosentini, Intesa Sanpaolo
Maria Finkelmeir, Berklee College of Music
Stefano Maffei, Politecnico di Milano
Lucia Marengo, UX Researcher
U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo, Artist and Creative Consultant
Mohsen Mohgaddam, Georgia Institute of Technology
Piero Molino, Predibase
Dietmar Offenhuber, Professor, Art + Design, CAMD
Martha Rettig, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Rohan Tandon, Product Experience Designer
Giovanni Maria Troiano, Kennesaw State University
Linda Tvrdy, Center for Health Policy and Law
Beatrice Villari, Politecnico di Milano
Lu Wang, University of Michigan

People and Partners

Leadership

Staff

Core Faculty Members

Affiliate Members

Bridges Fellows

Students-in-Residence

Partners

Banca Intesa

CoDesign Collaborative

City of Boston Office of Participatory Budgeting

Creative Climate Lab

Design Research Society

Density Design Lab

Dubberly Design Office

The Jackson Laboratory

Knox Clinic

Loud Numbers

metaLab

Politecnico di Milano

Politecnico di Torino

Previous Bridges Fellows

2024-2025

2023-2024

Previous Students-in-Residence

Spring 2026

Fall 2025

Previous Affiliate Members

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