Henri Christiaans, Chair professor and Dean of the School of Design & Human Engineering (DHE), Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology (UNIST), as well as invited professor at the School of Architecture of University Minho, Portugal. He holds a master degree in psychology and a PhD in Industrial Design Engineering. Henri was for many years associate professor at the TU Delft School of Industrial Design Engineering in the Netherlands where he was head of the Master specialization on Retail Design and the Master Program Integrated Product Design. Furthermore, he was an invited professor at Lisbon University in Portugal, EAFIT university in Colombia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, DYPDC University at Pune, India and , UNIST in South Korea.
He supervised over 130 Master graduation projects, all of them performed in and together with Dutch and international companies. He supervised 20 PhD projects and was external examiner for another 13 (foreign) PhD’s.
He conducts research and teaching in design methodology, retail design, creativity in design, cognitive ergonomics and research methodology. Next to the many papers published in reviewed journals and conference proceedings he has published books about, design thinking, innovation management, retail design and research methodology. Many of his research projects were externally funded by both Dutch and European organizations and industry.
Henri was and still is involved in the development and implementation of new design programs at universities all over the world. For many years he is also design consultant working with companies in the Netherlands, Portugal, Croatia and Slovenia, and Africa. He was the former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Design Research (www.inderscience.com/jdr).