Ron Wakkary

Teaching & research interests

• More-than-human approaches to designing
• Internet of things and tangible computing
• Philosophies of technology in design
• Critical posthumanities
• Speculative design
• Interaction design

Ron Wakkary is a Professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University in Canada where he founded the Everyday Design Studio. In addition, he is a professor and chair of design for More Than Human-Centred Worlds in the Future Everyday Cluster in Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. His research investigates the changing nature of design in response to new understandings of human-technology relations, multispecies worlds, and posthumanism. He aims to reflectively create new design exemplars, theory, and emergent practices to contribute generously and expansively to understanding ways of designing that are more accountable, cohabitable, and equitable.

His contributions have been recognized with numerous awards including the Kyoto Global Design Award for design theory for Things We Could Design for More than Human-Centered Worlds (MIT Press 2021) in 2021; Distinguished Researcher, Faculty of Communication, Art, and Technology, SFU in 2021; and the Dean of Graduate Studies Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision, SFU in 2017. He and his co-authors have received 16 best paper and honourable mention awards for their publications at CHI, DIS, CSCW, C&C, EVA, and ICAD.

He is currently co-chair of ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) Steering Committee and was a member of ACM Tangible Embedded/Embodied Interaction (TEI) Steering Committee. He is an editorial board member of several journals including ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (ToCHI), International Journal of Design (IJD), Journal of Human-Technology Relations (JHTR), Archives of Design Research (KSDR) and Temes de Disseny (TdD) Journal. He was Co-Editor-in-Chief of ACM interactions from 2010 to 2017. Wakkary co-chaired ACM DIS conferences in 2020 and 2014, and TEI conference in 2019.

Everyday Design Studio

The Everyday Design Studio (EDS) is a design research studio in Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology. Our group specializes in the areas of research through design, more-than-human approaches to design, and tangible computing. Our research investigates the changing nature of interaction design in response to our dynamic relations with technologies that mediate everyday practices and our cohabiting of multispecies worlds. In the spirit of design research, we aim to be reflective and generative. We design new computational things and systems to ask critical questions and study their interactions in the world. We also develop new methods for better supporting the practice of design research.

Our studio prides itself on a strong collaborative culture with a friendly, engaging, and highly creative atmosphere. If you are interested in applying as a Masters or PhD to join the studio, be sure to review our research and publications and contact Dr. Ron Wakkary at rwakkary@sfu.ca to express you interest and what you can contribute to our studio!

• BFA, Visual Arts, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design
  
• MFA, Visual Arts, State University of New York at Stony Brook
• PhD, Interaction Design - Human Computer Interaction, University of Plymouth