Stephen Melamed, FIDSA, is an industrial designer and design educator with over four decades of experience in consulting, manufacturing, corporate, and not-for-profit sectors. Stephen engages with and interweaves multiple disciplines to create a culture of innovation. An apprentice to the Bauhaus designer, Werner Graeff and his son, architect/designer Roberto Graeff, Stephen also studied with R. Buckminster Fuller. He holds a Master’s Degree in Industrial Design from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He is currently Clinical Professor and Founding Chair of the Industrial Design Department in the School of Design at UIC, and is the Associate Director of the Interdisciplinary Product Development (IPD) Program at the UIC Innovation Center.

Stephen has published articles on innovation, interdisciplinary product development, and design research and holds over 60 US Patents. He conducts Design Thinking Workshops for non-designers In China and Europe. In addition to his responsibilities at UIC, he is a Principal of the industrial design consulting firm, PlusD2, is a certified LSP facilitator, and was a founding member of the AIGA national design advocacy group, Design for Democracy.

2019