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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Ellie Kemery

Principal AI User Research Lead at SAP Business AI

Black and white photo of Ellie Kemery

Ellie has spent her career at the intersection of humanity, design, and technology. Her work deepens our understanding of people who use our products and helps teams to ethically build intelligent human-centered product experiences.

She is currently leading Responsible AI Research for SAP, and is advancing a culture of ethical practices with a focus on product inclusion, responsible human-centered AI, and sustainability. Her team generates deep and actionable insight on these topics, establishes principles/guidelines and operationalizes best practices that guide and empower global product development teams.

Shapeshift Session

Corporate Panel: Beyond Silicon Valley | Thursday, May 29

About the Summit

Shapeshift Summit

Program

Immersion