Founder and Coordinator

Professor of Industrial Design at the Politecnico di Milano, the founder and director of MADEC (Material Design Culture Research Centre), where she leads pioneering research at the intersection of design innovation and material science. She is also a member of the PhD Board in Design at the Politecnico di Milano, where she supervises theses on innovative materials, circular design, and the relationship between craftsmanship and design.

Since earning her PhD in 2000 under the mentorship of Professor Vanni Pasca, her work has significantly contributed to understanding the relationship between design and materials, both historically and in contemporary contexts, and to advancing methodologies for design-driven material innovation.

Her expertise, recognized internationally, has earned

• ADI Design Index Selection for curating *SocialSocial Design: Design and Common Good, isAIS/design. Storia e Ricerca.
• Top Innovation Award (TIA) asTop 10 Educator for Industrial Design, pres
• Lombardy Excellence Award 2019, for theMaterial That Move: Smart Materials, Intelligent Design (Spr
• Compasso d’Oro International Prize,

Since 2011, she has served as the editor-in-chief of the scientific online journal PAD. Pages on Arts & Design, which publishes thematic issues featuring scholarly articles by researchers from Europe, the Maghreb region, and beyond. With over 150 scientific publications to her name, she continues to organize and lead design workshops in collaboration with companies for the School of Design, participate in international conferences, and contribute to scientific committees of leading journals and congresses.

In recent years, she has been engaged by prestigious foreign institutions—including the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, Portugal’s Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, and the French National Research Agency—as a member of evaluation panels for scientific research and grant allocation.

Publications

Ferrara, M., & Bianco, B. (2023). Materials and Society: Advancing the Material Culture of Design

Bianco, B., & Ferrara, M. (2023). Material research in the design field: a gender gap analysis

Squatrito, M., & Ferrara, M. (2023). The emerging role of design in the circular materials field

Ferrara, M., & Squatrito, A. (2022). L’innovazione design-driven dei materiali circolari a base biologica. Strategie e competenze per la progettazione

Ferrara, M. (2022). Sulla storia del design dei materiali. Il contributo di Cecilia Cecchini ed elementi di riflessione per nuove storie.

Bruno, D., Ferrara, M., D’Alessandro, F., Mandelli, A. (2022). The Role of Design in the CE Transition of the Furniture Industry – The Case of the Italian Company Cassina

Ferrara, M. (2021). Circular Material for Creative Industries: The Emerging Bioplastics

Ferrara, M. (2021). The Ultra Surfaces Vision

Ferrara, M., & Squatrito, A. (2021). From smart materials to Animate Objects. Reframing smartness through behaviour Exploration

Ferrara, M., & Liu, Q. (2020). Designing with Smart Materials in the Internet of Things Age.

Ferrara, M. (2020). Per un’estetica delle superfici. Esperienza multisensoriale e coinvolgimenti emotivi

Ferrara, M., Langella, C., & Lucibello, S. (2019). Bio-smart Materials for Product Design Innovation: Going through Qualities and applications. In Advances in intelligent systems and computing (pp. 634–640).

Ferrara, M., & Russo, A. C. (2019). Augmented Materials for Tangible Interfaces: Experimenting with Young Designers.

Ferrara, M., & Lorusso, G. (2018) Esplorare le interfacce
materiche. Le nuove sfide della didattica tra product e interaction design

Bengisu, M., & Ferrara, M. (2018). Materials that Move. Smart Materials, Intelligent Design

Ferrara, M., Ceppi, G. (2017) (eds). Ideas and the Matter. Trento: ListLab.

Ferrara, M. (2017). Shifting to Design-driven Material Innovation. In Ferrara, M., Ceppi, G. (eds) Ideas and the Matter, pp. 173-185. Trento: ListLab.

Ferrara, M. (2017). Fundamentals of Material Design Culture. In Ferrara, M., Ceppi, G. (eds) Ideas and the Matter, pp. 157-172. Trento: ListLab.

Ferrara, M., Lecce, C. (2017). Design-driven Material Innovation. In Ferrara, M., Ceppi, G. (eds) Ideas and the Matter, pp. 186-205. Trento: ListLab.

Ferrara, M., Rognoli, V. (2017)(eds) Materialidad difusa. Prácticas de diseño y tendencias. Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación, 70.

Ferrara, M., Rognoli, V., Arquilla, V., Parisi, S. (2018) ICS Materiality. In W. Karwowski, T. Ahram (eds) Intelligent Human Systems Integration (pp. 763-769). Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Intelligent Human Systems Integration (IHSI 2018): Integrating People and Intelligent Systems, January 7-9, 2018, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Cham: Springer

Ferrara, M., Russo, C. (2018). Next Smart Design: Inclusion, Emotions, Interaction in the Concept of Baby Soothing, Caring and Monitoring Smart Solutions. In W. Karwowski, T. Ahram (eds) Intelligent Human Systems Integration (pp. 673-679). Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Intelligent Human Systems Integration (IHSI 2018): Integrating People and Intelligent Systems, January 7-9, 2018, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Cham: Springer

Parisi, S., Spallazzo, D., Ferraro, V., Ferrara, M., Ceconello, M. A., Ayala Garcia, C., Rognoli V. (2018). Mapping ICS Materials: Interactive, Connected, and Smart Materials. In W. Karwowski, T. Ahram (eds) Intelligent Human Systems Integration (pp. 739-744). Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Intelligent Human Systems Integration (IHSI 2018): Integrating People and Intelligent Systems, January 7-9, 2018, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Cham: Springer

Lucibello, S., Ferrara, M., Langella, C., Cecchini, C., Carullo R. (2018). Bio-smart Materials: The Binomial of the Future. In W. Karwowski, T. Ahram (eds) Intelligent Human Systems Integration (pp. 745-750). Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Intelligent Human Systems Integration (IHSI 2018): Integrating People and Intelligent Systems, January 7-9, 2018, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Cham: Springer

Carullo, R., Cecchini C, Ferrara, M., Langella, C, Lucibello, S. (2017). From Science to Design: the Design4Materials virtuous cycle. In The Design Journal, 20, sup1, pp. 1794S-1806S. Proceeding of Design for Next, EAD 12 Roma, 12-14 Aprile.

Russo, A.C., Ferrara, M. (2017) Smart Solutions, « Smart Aesthetics »? In The Design Journal, 20, sup1, pp. 342-353.

Ferrara, M. & Lecce C. (2016), The Design-driven Material Innovation Methodology in IFDP`16 – Systems & Design Beyond Processes and Thinking, Universitat Politècnica de València, 2016 pp. 431-448.

Ferrara M., Bengisu M. (2015). Kinetic Materials Experience. In: Design and semantics of form and movement. p. 138-145, Milano.

Ferrara, M. & Lecce, C. (2015), MADEC. Material Design Culture. In E. Duarte, C. Duarte, F. Carvalho Rodrigues (Eds.), Senses & Sensibility ’15: Design as a Trade, proceedings of the UNIDCOM/IADE 8th International Conference, pp. 490-497. Lisbon: IADE-Creative University.

Ferrara, M. (2015). AdvanceDesign: A Renewed Relationship Between Design and Science for the Future. In M. Celi (ed), Advanced Design Cultures, Long-Term Perspective and Continuous Innovation. Cham: Springer, pp. 149-169.