Assistant or Associate Professor, Industrial Design

Position Description
The Department of Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) invites applications for a full-time faculty appointment at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor, to commence in fall 2027. Rank will be dependent on professional status and teaching experience.

RISD recognizes principles of social equity, inclusion, and diversity as fundamental to its mission as an art and design school. These principles require sustained attention to a multiplicity of differences and call for an expansion of the forms of knowledge that shape our curricula and pedagogy. RISD is committed to the collective work of institutional transformation and values applicants whose teaching, pedagogical and professional experiences have prepared them to foster and sustain equitable learning environments. We especially welcome faculty whose pedagogy engages diverse perspectives, expands forms of knowledge, and helps foster a culture of belonging where all students, staff, and faculty can thrive.

We seek an experienced industrial designer, educator, and hands-on maker/creative technologist who can bridge analog and digital methods, emerging technologies, and physical making. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable teaching students how to use hand tools and fabrication equipment, developing digital workflows, building functional prototypes, and teaching students through hands-on experimentation and iterative design, while also critically engaging with the social, cultural, and ethical implications of technology.

Candidates with significant professional practice and advanced technical expertise are encouraged to apply, including those whose primary experience has been outside traditional academic settings. We seek candidates who are accomplished designers, have a clear and compelling research agenda – as evidenced through their creative, scholarly or professional work – and who share our deep commitment to teaching and design education. Candidates should be able and ready to teach a range of core and advanced coursework.

Required Qualifications
A master’s degree or a bachelor’s degree with a minimum of 5 years of professional experience.
3 years of collegiate teaching experience beyond graduate assistantship
Demonstrated professional experience in one or more of the following: hands-on making, industry production methods, physical computing, digital technology and fabrication, CNC machining, advanced manufacturing, and material experimentation.
Professional portfolio that includes evidence of unique ideation and experimentation through physical prototyping, fabrication, and functional demonstration, with a strong understanding of materials, processes, tools, and production methods.
Demonstrate a teaching ability to structure learning, facilitate student groups, and to advise undergraduate and graduate students.
Demonstrated commitment to fostering equitable learning environments through inclusive, culturally responsive, accessible, and universally designed pedagogies to support critical engagement with art and design.
Ability to work collaboratively with others (students, faculty, and staff) to create a supportive learning environment.
Evidence of active program of research, creative practice, technological innovation, or professional engagement that contributes to the design field.

Preferred Qualifications
Ability to translate technologies and processes into meaningful industrial design concepts and working prototypes, and to connect technical practice with critical and theoretical reflection.
Potential to contribute to the future development and leadership of technology, making, and fabrication initiatives within the department of Industrial Design.
Experience collaborating with technicians, fabrication specialists, engineers, researchers, manufacturers, or other interdisciplinary partners to develop projects, facilities, tools, or educational experiences.
Experience developing or teaching that connects technical skills with design thinking, experimentation, critical making, and contemporary industrial design practice.

With 13 full-time faculty and 41part-time faculty, the Industrial Design departments runs 110 classes (per year) for 264 BFA candidates, 33 MID candidates, students from the joint Masters of Arts and Design Engineering (MADE) with Brown University, and a limited number of non-major students from across RISD and Brown.

The Industrial Design Department is aligned with RISD’s efforts to shape more just societies, to address sustainability and the climate crisis, and to contribute new knowledge through creative inquiry and practice.

In Industrial Design we believe that designers must be critical makers and critical thinkers. To enable our students to learn, think, and lead, we use material making and material design to gain hands-on design experience; to explore how to apply these processes to new products, services, and systems; and to gain mastery of the mindsets and methods to create new and meaningful innovation. For more about the department visit:

Our alumni go on to become professional and academic leaders in a field that is no longer narrowly focused on the creation of industrial goods. They design the objects, experiences, services and systems that give shape to contemporary life and beyond.

For more information apply directly at