Faculty

Erik Asia is a Filipino industrial designer, researcher and educator with design and research practices surrounding his interests in affordance-based design, discursive design, digital fabrication and design education, all grounded in principles of embodied cognition. He completed his Master of Design (Interaction) at ECU and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Industrial Design) from the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Educated in the UK, Canada and Italy, Michael Initially started a career in civil engineering before transferring to art and design. He has done work in furniture design, product design, retail interiors, exhibition design and healthcare design. Michael has exhibited work in the UK, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Finland and Japan.

Keith Doyle’s interests include collaborative practices in art and design through modalities of making and knowledge mobilization. He has led projects investigating New Craft and transformational design practices, material production technologies, regenerative material creation and textiles and design research. His projects include Pedestrian Protest, cloTHINGS as conversation, Here//Too//For, Charred Wood and the 21st Milano Triennale’s Liminal Labs.

Hélène Day Fraser is a founding member and co-director of the Material Matters Research Commons at ECU, and a member of ECU’s DESIS lab. From 2013 to 2018 she led the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight-funded cloTHING(s) as Conversation project. In her role as ECU’s Academic Co-ordinator for Sustainability she established Creatives with Intent, a group that promoted agency and communication around sustainability. In 2018 she founded the Material Matters Textile Adaptation Research Program (TARP).

Laura Kozak has published and presented papers at Participatory Design Conference, PIVOT: A World of Many Centers, Cumulus, The Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design (AICAD) and the Service Design and Innovation Conference (ServDes). She is a past president of 221A Artist Run Centre Society and a recipient of ECU’s Ian Wallace Award for Teaching Excellence. She holds a Master of Advanced Studies in Architecture from UBC and a BFA from Emily Carr.

Maryam is interested in light and shadows, from their intangible concepts to their corporeal representations in real-world contexts. She received her PhD in Architecture from the University of Tehran. Her dissertation, which examined the qualitative presence of light in Iranian architecture, was published in Iran and received the Dr. Mozayeni Award . She conducted further research at Simon Fraser University between 2012 and 2014, published in Colour and Light in Ancient and Medieval Art.

Logan graduated from ECU in 2016 with a Bachelor of Design in Industrial Design. From 2016 to 2017, he was Project Coordinator for the Material Matters Research Centre. Currently, he is both a Studio Technician and Sessional Faculty. Logan enjoys sharing creative knowledge with others and exploring new ways of thinking through materials and emergent technology. At the Digital Fabrication Lab he works with individuals to help them refine and articulate skills in various methods of digital and physical prototyping.

Dr. Louise St. Pierre is co-author of the internationally recognized sustainable design curriculum, Okala Ecological Design. She established Canada’s first DESIS (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability) Lab, researching how design can influence low-impact behaviours and lifestyles. Louise is now on the DESIS International Coordination Committee. She brings animist views to DESIS: all beings are social and should be included in design. Recent works including co-editing Design and Nature: A partnership (2019), Nature Relations: Design places, design practices, design senses (2023) and co-authoring Activating Design for Biodiversity (2021). Her PhD dissertation at Simon Fraser University was awarded the Dean of Graduate studies Convocation Medal. She continues to research how designers can prioritize all beings of the more-than-human world.

Keith Shapland is an industrial designer and educator. As a designer he specializes in the development of mock-ups and prototypes, ranging in scale from a full size 747 interior to tiny surgically implanted medical devices. He has designed and made a wide range of things, including aircraft cockpit voice recorder test and manufacturing equipment, trade show booths and museum exhibits. He was also an image compositor at Mainframe Entertainment on MTV’s Spiderman and Barbie.

Avery Shaw is an Interdisciplinary Designer whose work spans product design, manufactured goods, research and conceptual design. She holds an MDes in Design from ECU and a BA in Art History and English from the University of Guelph. Avery has over a decade of experience working for international brands as a product designer and developer, focusing on products for the home and designing for commercialization. She brings expertise in designing products across many categories, including furniture, outdoor, decor and textiles.