Gillian Crampton Smith

Gillian Crampton Smith began her interaction design career in 1981, designing and programming a magazine layout application. This prompted her passion for bringing graphic design knowledge to digital design. She taught interaction design at St Martin’s, later becoming Professor and Head of Department at the Royal College of Art. In 2000, invited to Italy by Telecom Italia and Olivetti, she set up the research and teaching institution Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, and in 2006, with Philip Tabor, founded and now coordinates the Interaction Design programme in the Visual and Multimedia Communication masters course, Iuav University of Venice. Her collaborations have included Apple Computer, Interval Research, H-Farm and IDEO; she is now a Research Affiliate at MIT. Her career has concentrated on encouraging design students to think innovatively about the potential of digital technologies and persuading companies that design can transcend just problem-solving; she believes that business and academia, in collaboration, have much to learn from each other.