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Biography
Chris is a design educator, researcher and designer. He lectures across product design, inclusive design (which includes human-centred design) and interaction design subjects at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD).
As Programme Director for Product Design (Undergraduate 2016 – 2020) he had the privilege of leading the programme to a number 1 ranking by the Guardian University Guide (2018). He is currently the Director for the Design for Healthcare (MSc) programme, a course which he co-developed with colleagues from DJCAD, School of Medicine and School of Health Sciences. This course, a partnership between the internationally recognised School of Medicine, School of Health Sciences and School of Art and Design (DJCAD), and the first-of-its kind in Scotland and 2nd in the UK, aims to transform healthcare and the lives of people through human-centred design, health design thinking and practice.
Chris’s research interests are in the area of Inclusive Design, Co-Design practice and Design for Healthcare and Wellbeing. He is interested in the design of inclusive products and environments, and the practice of design and craft to support wellbeing. He has also recently been fascinated in the relationship between metaphors and product interaction. He welcomes discussions and/or research collaborations in these areas and also conversations with individuals who are thinking of pursuing a PhD. Chris has supervised several PhD students to completion as both first and second supervisor and is an external examiner for several UK and international universities.
Coming from a multi-disciplinary background, Chris holds a diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Ngee Ann Polytechnic (Singapore), a BEng (1st Class) in Product Design Engineering and PhD in Design from the University of Glasgow and Glasgow School of Art. Prior to his PhD, he worked as a design engineer in the offshore and maritime industry. After his PhD, Chris worked as a research lead and designer at design consultancy Nomad-RDC where he worked with various collaborators which includes Vitra, Page\Park and WilkisonEyre. Returning to academia, he was a research fellow at the Digital World Research Centre (University of Surrey), working in a cross-disciplinary project funded by the ESRC New Dynamics of Ageing programme looking at the engagement of older people in the co-design process of developing novel and innovative ICT products.
He was involved in the development of Com.Cam, an open source media sharing device funded by EPSRC University of Surrey Knowledge Transfer Account for communities with low textual and computing literacy and limited power and network coverage. During his fellowship, he also co-secured £73K from the Nominet Trust to fund the Tailoring Technology project which brought together groups of older people with design experts, experienced product developers and manufacturers to co-design new internet-enabled ICT devices and services. At Dundee, he is a Co-I and PI in several RCUK, external and internally funded projects.
Research
BESiDE (Built Environment for Social Inclusion through the Digital Economy)
Co-Investigator in the EPSRC funded project led by Professor Vicki Hanson. The project aims to improve the mobility and well-being of older people through better built environment design. His strand in this project involves the exploration of co-designing wearables with care home residents. (Funding amount: £1.3 million)
VIVID (Visually-Impaired access to Visualised Data)
Chris is Joint-PI in SICSA’s (The Scottish Informatics & Computer Science Alliance) funded challenge, which seeks to understand the challenges that data visualisations present to people with visual impairment. (Funding amount: £5,000)
3D Printing and Assistive Products
This project in collaboration with social enterprise Home Straight who provides ageing-in-place services explored the technical feasibility of 3D printed personalised home adaptive equipment. Outcomes included a case study for Innovation Portal Dundee and an Exhibition at DJCAD. (Funding amount: £5,000)
ADHD Behavioural Clinical Data
In this project our work package explored the documentation and visualization process of ADHD clinicians and support workers. This resulted in the redesign of the existing clinical data documentation and is currently undergoing phased trial. An App version is also being explored. This project was in collaboration with Prof David Coghill, Dr Sarah Seth, Ewan Steel and Lilia Gomez. (Funding amount: £10,000)
Research for Allied Health Professionals: Making Research Useful for Practice
Funded by the Scottish Universities Insight Insitute, the aim of the programme is to co-design and prototype new types of knowledge products for Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) to make research more useful for practice. Bringing together AHP practitioners and researchers with experts from a variety of creative fields (e.g. artists, designers, creative writers, technologists) in a series of four interactive workshops, we collaboratively defined what ‘useful’ research knowledge should look like and developed new approaches for presenting research in useful ways. For more info see Scottish Insight website.