In 2026, after nearly 90 years, the Institute of Design was folded into Illinois Tech's School of Design & Society.
This website is an archive of the impactful and inspirational work produced by the ID community before that transition.

László Moholy-Nagy opened the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, treating design as a discipline that was teachable, testable, and consequential. Nine decades on, its scope had widened from the things people use to the systems they depend on: hospitals, government agencies, classrooms, supply chains, digital platforms. Along the way, ID community members developed the published research, methods, and frameworks that designers rely on every day.

Chief among them is human-centered design: close attention to how people actually live, and advocacy for what that research reveals. It shaped designers who are comfortable with complexity and ambiguity: curious, rigorous, inclusive, and stubbornly optimistic about design's ability to change the systems that shape our lives.

To every one of them, who taught, studied, built, critiqued, and stayed late in the studio: thank you, and keep designing.

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Cecilia Tham, 2023 Women in Tech Top Speaker, on Synthesizing Futures

PhD Researcher Shares Professional Insights with ID Community

December 12, 2023

Cecilia Tham portrait with modular brand treatment

Cecilia Tham, named a 2023 Women in Tech 100 Top Speaker, is a PhD researcher at the Institute of Design. She recently presented her professional work in synthesizing futures to the ID community. The video is available below, on YouTube, and on Vimeo.

Tham examined how a combination of scientific analysis and creative thinking can inform a futurist perspective.

Cecilia Tham: How to Synthesize and Design Futures with Science

PhD researcher Cecilia Tham discusses how combining the rigor of science with the imagination of design can help us navigate the unknown and create a better future.

She also addresses the importance of diversity and inclusiveness in futurist forecasting and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to ensure that future scenarios are grounded in reality and reflect the values and needs of all members of society.

Cecilia MoSze Tham (PhD 2026) is the founder and CEO of Futurity Systems. Tham was formerly a Social Technologist at Alpha Telefonica, Europe’s first moonshot factory, and a serial entrepreneur who founded multiple companies such as Makers of Barcelona, FabCafe, and allWomen.tech. She has served as an advisor to UN World Food Program X, SXSW, and the City Government of Barcelona, as well as private companies.

Learn more about ID’s PhD program, the first PhD program in design offered in the US.

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