Category Archives: People

Dr. Prof. Marinella Ferrara

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. Continue reading Dr. Prof. Marinella Ferrara

Dr. Beatrice Bianco

Research Fellow

Research Fellow at Politecnico di Milano, Project Coordinator in Design Education, and Former Founder and Director of Camp Design Gallery, she bridges the gap between historical academic inquiry and practical design in contemporary material culture. With a strong academic foundation in Archaeology and Ancient History from the École Pratique des Hautes Études and an MBA in Management of Cultural Events and the Art Market from Paris, she has consistently explored material culture across both historical and modern contexts.

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Jingyu Xu

PhD Candidate

Jingyu Xu is a Politecnico di Milano PhD candidate. Her research interests include ceramic design and theory research, recycling design, traditional culture redesign, and material innovation.

 

Zehan Shang

External Collaborator

Zehan Shang is an industrial designer and researcher exploring the intersections between traditional crafts and contemporary design. He gets his both Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Product Design from Politecnico di Milano.

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Sara Bologna

External Collaborator
Sara Bologna is a designer, design consultant and researcher based in Milan.
Focusing on the anthropological and intangible aspects of material culture, she conceives artifacts as narrative mediums that can surface alternate sets of values, to steer systemic change. Her imagery is permeated with rituals, symbols, graffiti from the creases of pre-history, fragments of poems, and grimoires. All these inspirations are deconstructed and reconstructed based on iconographic, semantic and historical insight, and turned into objects through a narrative-driven approach.

Dr. Murat Bengisu

External Collaborator

PhD in Materials Engineering. Head of Design Studies Master’s and PhD programs at Izmir University of Economics (IUE). Instructor at the Industrial Design Department at IUE. His research interest includes materials for design, smart materials, borate glasses, engineering ceramics, biomaterials, biomimetics, linguistics of design, technological forecasting, disability and work, design history, and text mining.

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