The Department of Industrial Design (ID) is one of the nine departments of TU/e and has an internationally leading position because of its core commitment to research through design (RtD) and its strikingly original conceptual work. ID's ambition is to be recognized as one of the top departments in the world that conduct exciting research in the intersection of Design, Technology, Human-Computer Interaction, and Social Sciences and Humanities. In particular, the department aims to inspire and educate a new generation of design engineers who can contribute with their novel designs, their fluency in AI/ML algorithms and data, and their academic critical questioning, to the imminent and complex societal challenges our world is facing nowadays.
The ID education program is competence-centered, self-directed and challenged-based. ID focuses on educating students to design through five different perspectives (called Expertise Areas), through core courses and electives:
- Math, data and computing.
- User and society.
- Technology and realization.
- Business and entrepreneurship.
- Creativity and aesthetics.
Students also learn to make connections between the different perspectives within project groups called squads. In addition, the ID education curriculum encourages and empowers students to take the ownership of their personal and professional development. Supported by their academic coaches, through ID curriculum and their personal, industrial and research projects, students develop a unique competence of designing and related design approaches individually. Next to self-directed learning and competence development, the educational model of ID is challenge-based. ID students work together on challenging and authentic projects in which multiple perspectives or disciplines are incorporated to solve the challenge (for example by working within interdisciplinary groups) using an entrepreneurial mindset.
At the Industrial Design department we have two research groups: Systemic Change and Future Everyday.
Job description The department of industrial design seeks candidates for an assistant professor position with a curiosity and drive to combine design, technology, and aesthetics. The focus of this position is to co-develop a research and education program that critically explores and redefines the role of 'beauty' and aesthetics in designing with emerging technologies, new materials, societal challenges, and recent philosophies. This program explores topics such as uncertainty, agency, intentionality, and emergence in the context of designing and experiencing within intelligent systems (artificial-social-cultural-biological-natural). The candidate should have a strong track record in research through practice (design or art), creative thinking and sensitive making, and should have affinity towards collaborating in societal contexts and multi-disciplinary teams.
Education: The candidate shall contribute to courses at bachelor's and master's level in related topics within the expertise area of creativity and aesthetics, with a preferred focus on sustainability and artificial intelligence.