Ms Franziska Conrad

Constructivist

Multi-disciplinary

Planet-centric

Franziska is a product designer and accomplished entrepreneur with 18 years of experience designing outdoor and leisure equipment. She has a passion for Nature Inspired Design (NID) and has completed specialised Biomimicry training. Her PhD research is focussed on embedding NID in design education and enhancing students understanding of sustainable design practice. 
She has ongoing research relationships with the RNLI and AUB innovation (GCRF funded). The focus here is on participatory design research in the context of drowning prevention in developing countries, including Zanzibar, mainland Tanzania and Bangladesh.
The impact of gender on Product Design education is another research interest.
She achieved FHEA fellowship in 2013 and has since developed her career as design educator across a number of universities. She has been Program Leader for Product Design and has developed and lead MA and BA degrees in Design and Innovation since 2012. She is now teaching Design in a multi-disciplinary context to engineering students at University of Southampton.
She is external examiner at Staffordshire University and Kingston University.
Franziska is an active Design Thinker and Strategist who has moved her traditional product design practice into the domains of speculative and systems design.