Honorary Fellows

An Honorary Fellow is an individual recognised by the Society to have rendered outstanding services to the Society or to the design community in general. Honorary Fellowship is the highest honour the Society can bestow and is awarded in recognition of having achieved the highest standard of professional achievement in design practice, teaching or research. Honorary Fellows have to be internationally visible and most eminent in the design community but do not necessarily have to be members of the Design Society.

List of Honorary Fellows

Listed in surname-alphabetical order.

Mogens Myrup Andreasen
Honorary fellow (2003)
(Denmark)
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
A founding member of WDK, Mogens Andreasen has made notable contributions to design research over more than three decades, especially in product development, modularisation and design theory.
 
Herbert Birkhofer
Honorary fellow (2009)
(Germany)
Product Development and Machine Elements, Darmstadt University of Technology
The first President of the Design Society, Herbert Birkhofer has made notable contributions to research and practice in the area of machine design and systematic design methodology.
 
Nigel Cross
Honorary fellow (2007)
(United Kingdom)
Department of Design, The Open University
Previously serving as Editor of the journal Design Studies and President of the Design Research Society, Nigel Cross has made significant contributions to design research and practice for over five decades. He is particularly responsible for developing an understanding on design cognition and in promoting the notion of design thinking.
 
Alex Duffy
Honorary fellow (2011)
(United Kingdom)
Retired from Design Manufacture and Engineering Management, University of Strathclyde
Founder member of the Design Society and President from 2005 to 2009, Alex Duffy has made significant research contributions in computer-aided design and systems design. He has also previously served as Editor of the Journal of Engineering Design.
 
Clive Dym †
Honorary fellow (2017)
(United States)
Engineering, Harvey Mudd College
Clive L. Dym was the Fletcher Jones Professor of Engineering Design at Harvey Mudd College since 1991, where he directed the Center for Design Education and was also department chair (1999–2002). His interests included design theory, knowledge-based systems, and structural and applied mechanics. A graduate of Cooper Union (1964), Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (1964), and Stanford University (1967),he authored ten books, a large number of articles and served as founding editor-in-chief of AIEDAM. He led the creation of the North American Chapter of the Design Society. The US National Academy of Engineering has recognized Prof. Dym and his Harvey Mudd colleagues with the prestigious Gordon Prize for the creation and dissemination of innovations in undergraduate engineering design education.
 
Wolfgang Ernst Eder †
Honorary fellow (2007)
(Canada)
Mechanical Engineering, Royal Military College of Canada
Ernst Eder made significant contributions to WDK, over many years and was particularly instrumental in developing, documenting and promulgating research in design science.
 
Michael French †
Honorary fellow (2005)
(United Kingdom)
Lancaster University
Michael French, the first Head of the Engineering Department at Lancaster University and its founding professor, died on Tuesday 24 February 2015. Michael French was honoured by the Design Society for his original and outstanding contribution to design research and education, especially in conceptual design. His insights and original thinking led amongst much other work to two outstanding books - ‘Conceptual Design for Engineers’ and ‘Invention and Evolution, Design in Nature and Engineering’ - that influenced a generation of design researchers and students. The undergraduate course he set up at Lancaster embodied radical ideas which have endured to this day and has laterly been imitated elsewhere, a witness to Michael’s forward thinking.
 
John Gero
Honorary fellow (2009)
(United States)
Computer Science and Architecture, UNCC and GMU
A prolific researcher in design, John Gero was honoured for notable contributions in design computing, computer-aided design and design cognition and for his promotion of international collaboration in design research.
 
Vladimir Hubka †
Honorary fellow (2001)
(Switzerland)
Swiss Federal Technical University (ETH)
Vladimir Hubka was the father of the ICED Conferences and WDK and a major contributor throughout his life to design science, the theory of technical systems and the theory of design processes. In addition to his Honorary Fellowship, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Society for his outstanding contribution to the community and design science.
 
Larry J. Leifer
Honorary fellow (2011)
(United States)
Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
Founding Director of the Center for Design Research (CDR) at Stanford University, Larry Leifer has made notable contributions to design thinking research and its application in understanding, supporting and improving design practice.
 
Gerhard Pahl †
Honorary fellow (2005)
(Germany)
Technical University of Darmstadt
Co-author of perhaps the most celebrated book on Engineering Design, Gerhard Pahl was honoured for his original and outstanding contribution to design methods and methodology.
 
Norbert Roozenburg
Honorary fellow (2011)
(Netherlands)
Retired from the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology
Founding member of the Society’s Advisory Board, Norbert Roozenburg was honoured for his strong contributions to design research and scholarship over many years.
 
Ken Wallace †
Honorary fellow (2007)
(United Kingdom)
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
Member of WDK, former Editor-in-Chief (Europe) of Research in Engineering Design and first Director of the Cambridge Engineering Design Centre, Ken Wallace was honoured for many contributions to design research and education.
 
Hiroyuki Yoshikawa
Honorary fellow (2003)
(Japan)
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
President of the University of Tokyo and former President of CIRP, Hiroyuki Yoshikawa is the originator of general design theory as a formal theory of design and a major contributor to the foundations of design research.