Our Team

Faculty

	Anna Pohlmeyer Co-chair Anna Pohlmeyer’s background is in psychology (Humboldt University Berlin). Furthermore, she completed her PhD research in engineering design at TU Berlin and the University of Luxembourg. Her thesis focused on early phases of product development in the design of human-technology interaction. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked at MIT AgeLab on ideas and technologies that can improve quality of life across the lifespan. As assistant professor at TU Delft, she investigates theoretical and empirical aspects of design-mediated well-being.
	Pieter Desmet Co-chair Desmet introduced cognitive emotion theory to the domain of design research, and is board member of the International Design and Emotion Society. Desmet was recently awarded a five year personal grant for research that aims to understand the nuances of positive emotions in human-product interactions.
	Deger Ozkaramanli Deger studied Design for Interaction at Delft University of Technology and received an M.Sc. degree with a thesis focusing on designing for sustainable eating habits using emotional dilemmas as a starting point. She continued to investigate the design-relevance of emotional dilemmas in her PhD project, which was finalised in March 2017. In this project, she developed tools and methods that can support designers in using emotional dilemmas as valuable starting points for user-centred design processes. Example domains in which this approach has so far been implemented include sustainability, physical and mental wellbeing, social play and more. Deger is a member of Delft Institute of Positive Design, and currently, she continues her research on dilemma-driven design at the University of Liverpool (February 2016 – present). See her personal webpage for more information.
	Jay Yoon Jay Yoon is a PhD candidate at Industrial Design Engineering of TU Delft. He has a background in industrial design and computer science. His research focuses on emotion-driven design, mainly concerning how understanding nuances of positive emotions can contribute to a design process. He has been developing design tools and techniques aiming to assist designers to be aware of differentiated aspects between distinct positive emotion types. He is currently working on identifying the opportunities to work with the awareness of nuances of positive emotions. Personal webpage

Post-doc researchers

Haian Xue
Haian is currently working at IDE and DIOPD as a post-doc researcher on the Design for Mood Regulation research project. He has a background in Industrial Design and acquired his Doctor of Arts (Finnish equivalent of PhD in Design) from Aalto University in Helsinki. In past ten years, he has lived and worked in Finland, the UK, and the USA as a design researcher and teacher. His research interests stand at the intersections of design, experience, and strategy. In addition, he also finds his (spare time) passion in philosophy, physics and history.

Steven Fokkinga
Fokkinga introduced the possibility of involving negative emotion in product interaction, thus unlocking a whole new range of potentially enjoyable product experiences for designers. He explored and formalized these insights into an approach that leads to richer, more meaningful product-user experiences.

Doctoral candidates

	Boudewijn Boon Boudewijn is interested in how design can play a role in shaping the ways people live their lives. During his master thesis (MSc Industrial Ecology) and his work as a research assistant for Pieter Desmet, this interest was reflected in his research on how design can facilitate ‘the good life within ecological means’. As a PhD candidate he is currently exploring how design can engage children with cancer in physical play and thereby stimulate their physical development.
	Pelin Esnaf Pelin is one of the three PhD candidates working for the Design for Mood Regulation research project. She has a background in industrial product design and holds a masters’ degree from TU Delft, Design for Interaction programme. She worked on a research internship project about mood & sleep and identified the products involved in the fifteen strategies to regulate mood. Then, in her master thesis, she focused on the empathic abilities of design students. Currently, she is exploring the relation between mood & performance. Her aim is to make the education better and to hopefully give inspiration to students, educators and designers.
	Alev Sonmez (Plamena Karova) Alev (Plamena) is a Ph.D. candidate at Industrial Design Engineering faculty of TU Delft. As a part of ‘Design for Mood Regulation” project, her research focuses on mood phenomenon from a collective perspective. She is interested in how moods function and are manifested in group settings, how individuals’ moods affect the team ‘vibe’ and how mood-sensitive design can improve interactions and performance of work groups. Alev studied in Industrial Design (BSc) at METU and pursued her master’s degree in Design for Interaction at TU Delft. Besides positive design, she is interested in service design, behaviour change, speculative design, design for animals, and she enjoys philosophical discussions and dancing.
	Makiko Higashi Makiko is a multidisciplinary designer (MA Royal College of Art) + researcher (MSc HCI, University College London), currently working on Design for Mood Regulation project at DIOP. Having a strong interest in the area around Psychological Wellbeing and Design Innovation, She integrates a critical and speculative design approach with a more empirically driven and principled manner in her research and creative process. With the experiences in both academia and industry, her strength is also translating research into sustainable design impact, with practical output.
	Katja Thoring Katja is Industrial Designer with a Master degree (Dipl.-Des.) from the University of the Arts Berlin. She is currently professor at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Dessau, where she teaches the Product Design Foundation class and Research Methods courses on Bachelor and Master level. She is also experienced in coaching design thinking and creativity techniques in various organizations. Her PhD topic ‚Creative Space‘ is focusing on the intersection of Design and Architecture, analyzing the influence of the physical environment on the creative work process of designers and design students. Moreover, she investigates the possibilities of new technologies for design research in general and emotion measurement in particular.
	Lisa Wiese Lisa is an external PhD candidate at TU Delft based in Berlin. Her background is in psychology, statistics and neuroscience. For the last ten years, she’s been conducting user research for eBay EU and helped shaping the user experience across different eBay subsidiaries (currently at brands4friends). Her PhD research at TU Delft focusses on the development of measurement instruments to assess products’ contribution to well-being.
	Mafalda Casais Mafalda has a background in illustration, graphic design and industrial design (MSc). Her PhD research at TU Delft focuses on the symbolic value of household products, its influence on personal values, behaviour and self-expression and its contribution to subjective well-being of the user.

Master students

	Hazal Ertürkan Positive design acquainted me with new ways to shape the future as a designer. I’ve gained a different perspective in addition to my industrial design background through DFI Master Programme. I became passionate to create meaningful experiences through interactions. My recent study is based on the Tiny Task concept, which aims to transform happiness enhancing activities into small tasks. The goal of the project is to adopt the concept into office environments to stimulate work engagement and increase happiness of employees.
	Jin Li Jin Li is a Design for Interaction student in TU Delft. With a background of product design in China, she started to explore the possibilities of positive design. She is always fascinated about creating special gifts and she believes that gift has more potential than bringing happiness to others. Her graduation project is to develop an online gift selecting tool for gift givers to find out what will contribute to their recipient’s well-being.
	Maurizio Filippi Maurizio is a Design for Interaction student at the Delft University of Technology. Previously, he has studied Industrial Design at Politecnico di Milano and at Lahti University in Finland. He believes that the very essence of designing lies in awareness, reflection, critical thinking and attention to detail. In his everyday life he tries to pursue those virtues in order to create products that bring quality into people’s lives.
	Karen Gonzalez Karen is a Design for Interaction student in TU Delft. She studied Industrial Design in Spain where she became interested in experience design, user research, and medicine. She believes that multidisciplinary projects are key to create impact. During the master she has become especially interested in how design and user research can add value to the healthcare technology industry in order to have a positive impact on users’ lives. Her graduation project is focused on how to create meaningful conversations with users through the data of smartwatches to improve peoples’ wellbeing and health.
	Yancheng Du Yancheng is a Design for Interaction student at the Delft University of Technology. Previously, he has studied Industrial Design at Hunan University. He believes that design makes the life better and let everything possible.
	Qianqian Zheng Qianqian is a Master student in the track of Design for Interaction at the Delft University of Technology. She has a background in Industrial Design from Beijing. She is keen on meaningful interactions that enhance the communication of people’s inner feelings. In her study, based on project Mood Regulation, she explores the correspondence between moods and their physical representations. Personal website: https://www.whoisqianqian.com
	Thijs te Velde Thijs te Velde is an Integrated Product Design student. Doing his Bachelor’s in Eindhoven, he came here with a strong focus on speculative interaction design and research. He came to Delft wanting to combine those skills with the more practical direction of IPD. He believes design can have a large impact on people by integrating it into daily life and is interested in working at the fringes of human experience, which are oftentimes very emotional contexts.
	Veronika Szabó Veronika is an Integrated Product Design student at the Delft University of Technology. Previously, she studied Industrial Design Engineering at Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary. She founds that positive design can complement the more technology-oriented approach of her master programme. For her, design is a means to improve the quality of lives of people who need it the most. This steered her in the direction of healthcare and medical design.
	Ward van Hoeven Ward is a student Design for Interaction at the TUDelft. He believes that people could sometimes use a little help in enhancing their wellbeing and that of people around them. Inspired by psychological theory on behaviour and human needs, he seeks to design ways in which people can gain new perspectives on the world. And through this new set of glasses, a sustained feeling of wellbeing.

Honorary members

	Jaya Kumar Jaya Kumar is former president of PepsiCo’s global nutrition group. He is currently senior vice-president for strategy in Asia of Mondelez International (an American multinational confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate), heading the Southeast Asia division.
	Eapen George Eapen George is the former V.P. R&D for Innovation at PepsiCo. Eapen is passionate about creating brands and products in the pursuit of positive emotions. He understands that with the right story, we can create powerful sensory signatures for core brands. With his new company, Round Feather, he is currently setting up a global network of like-minded people to undertake projects around the world that apply the principles of positive design.
	Beatrijs Voorneman Beatrijs Voorneman works on the domain of positive emotions and well being from a design perspective. In her Master thesis ‘Improving the welfare of pigs’ she discovered a new field within this domain: design for animal welfare. In 2011 and 2012, Beatrijs was project manager of the DIOPD.

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