Meet Chair Kristian Simsarian

Watch chair Kristian Simsarian address how to educate the next generation of interaction designers »

Passion for Education

Ours is a pragmatic design program, training students to tackle real problems in creative human ways. My passion in education is to be a guide for students to create the future from their own insightful, well-informed but also personally inspired visions. It means a tremendous amount that this program is set within an art school where creative passions are the fuel for the solutions students make.

Inspiration

What is amazing is that there is more demand than supply for strong interaction designers. Students training today as interaction designers are queuing up for careers in which they will chart their own course into a field abundant with opportunities for collaboration, creativity, innovation, and success that is personally and professionally meaningful.

Motivation & Beliefs

I love being part of enabling fulfilling, successful careers and lives for students, in which their skills, minds, spirits, and passions work in concert. What could be better?

I believe in the power of design to simplify, enrich, and transform our lives and the world. My work focuses on educating and inspiring students to bring innovative human-centered design and strategy to meaningful fruition, solving problems for individuals, companies, and communities.

Experience

I bring to CCA a deep, diverse, and international background that spans from health care to high-tech. In addition to my publications and patents, my work has been featured in Business Week, the New York Times, and Metropolis magazine as well as being highlighted in business books on innovation and interaction design.

I cofounded the Software Experiences practice at IDEO, a leading design consultancy, and served as practice director with a focus on mobile for 10 years. I've led design innovation initiatives for some of the world's largest brands as well as hospitals, nonprofits, start-up companies, and governments.

I also worked for 15 years in the world of think-tank research. At institutes in several countries I helped envision and prototype future digital experiences that involved virtual and augmented reality, immersive storytelling environments, interactive art and collaborative robots. In Sweden, I had the privilege to work shoulder-shoulder for several years with the founders of the Scandinavian Cooperative Design movement. That work heavily influenced my commitment to human-centered design.

Dr. Kristian Simsarian, Chair

Read Dr. Simsarian's faculty bio