Team

First trained as a designer, Estelle Berger obtained in 2014 a PhD in Applied Arts for research on the reflective practice of design. Supported by theory and an analysis of design practice in context, her research investigates the singularity of designers and the stances they adopt in companies and society at large. Her scope focuses on ethics, understood as a constant introspection and assessment of designers’ means, positions and ends in professional force fields. As a researcher and lecturer at Strate School of Design, she accompanies experience design and cross disciplinary innovation projects, putting an emphasis on the sensitive and imaginary dimensions. Based on action research, her collaborative projects and activities run within Strate research lab aim at developing a toolbox for professional practice and reflection-in-action. She supervises two on-going PhD thesis. As a designer, Estelle Berger specializes in experience design, with a predilection for the promotion of handicrafts through design.

Ioana Ocnarescu (Ph.D. in Design Science) is a Design Researcher at Strate School of Design (Paris, France) in the Research and Innovation Department. Her main research fields are: Social Robotics, Experience Design, Interaction Design and Design for education. Her PhD, entitled “Aesthetic Experience and Innovation Culture”, shows how design creates an innovation culture but also memorable experiences for the researchers of a Research & Development Department (at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs France, now Nokia Bell Labs). At Strate she coordinates Robotics by design lab, teaches classes on Experience Design, Speculative Design and Design & Robotics and she co-supervises two ongoing PhDs.

Annie Gentes, alumni of Ecole Normale Supérieure, Senior Lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences, visiting scholar at UC Santa Cruz, is the chair of the Codesign Lab in the Department of Economics and Social Sciences and executive board member of the Design Theories and Methods  of the Interdisciplinary Institute of Innovation (CNRS, UMR 9217). She analyzes design practices considered: - on the one hand, as social practices specific to teaching, trades, and cultures explicitly related to industrial design and arts and crafts. This research is done by observing situations and objects of design but also by the implementation of design projects (research through design). The goal is to define what is the specificity of "Design" in the social and cultural sense of the term that distinguishes this activity from other design activities. - on the other hand, as inventive practices regardless of the field of activity: design, engineering, or art. This research is done through observation, implementation, and comparison of projects in the fields of engineering, design, and art. The goal is to identify the commonalities between different rationalities of design to develop a more general theory of conception and to contribute to an epistemology of the sciences of conception. See: The In-discipline of Design. Bridging the Gap between Humanities and Engineering, Springer,  2017

Sihem Ben Mahmoud-Jouini is associate professor at HEC. She holds a PhD from Université Paris 9 Dauphine and did her research in the management research center of Ecole Polytechnique (CRG) where she is an associated researcher. She was visiting at Stern Business School (NYU) and at Babson College. At HEC, she is in charge of a master degree in Innovation, Project and Design and is in charge of the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Specialization of the Executive MBA.  She teaches and does her research on innovation management, new product development projects, creativity, design and managing innovation in a global context. Her work was published in Journal of Product Innovation Management, International Journal of Technology Management, International Journal of Innovation Management, Creativity and Innovation Management, Management International, International Journal of Project Management.

Thomas Paris is a researcher in economics and management at CNRS (GREG HEC), associate researcher at i3-CRG Ecole Polytechnique and professor affiliated with HEC Paris. Holds a doctorate in management, he conducts research on the economy of creation (cinema and audiovisual, music, fashion, publishing, architecture, advertising, “haute cuisine”, design) from the managerial, organizational and sectoral angles, as well as on the management of innovation, entrepreneurship and the digital economy. At HEC, he directs the MAC program (Media, Art, Creation).