Assistant or Associate Professor, Industrial Design

Posting Details

Position Information

Title Assistant or Associate Professor, Industrial Design Department Industrial Design Division Architecture & Design Employment Type Full-Time Critical Review Track (similar to tenure track) Yes Position Description

The Department of Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) invites applications for a full-time faculty appointment at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor, to commence in fall 2027. Rank will be dependent on professional status and teaching experience.

RISD recognizes principles of social equity, inclusion, and diversity as fundamental to its mission as an art and design school. These principles require sustained attention to a multiplicity of differences and call for an expansion of the forms of knowledge that shape our curricula and pedagogy. RISD is committed to the collective work of institutional transformation and values applicants whose teaching, pedagogical and professional experiences have prepared them to foster and sustain equitable learning environments. We especially welcome faculty whose pedagogy engages diverse perspectives, expands forms of knowledge, and helps foster a culture of belonging where all students, staff, and faculty can thrive.

We seek an experienced industrial designer, educator, and hands-on maker/creative technologist who can bridge analog and digital methods, emerging technologies, and physical making. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable teaching students how to use hand tools and fabrication equipment, developing digital workflows, building functional prototypes, and teaching students through hands-on experimentation and iterative design, while also critically engaging with the social, cultural, and ethical implications of technology.

Candidates with significant professional practice and advanced technical expertise are encouraged to apply, including those whose primary experience has been outside traditional academic settings. We seek candidates who are accomplished designers, have a clear and compelling research agenda - as evidenced through their creative, scholarly or professional work - and who share our deep commitment to teaching and design education. Candidates should be able and ready to teach a range of core and advanced coursework.

Required Qualifications

• A master's degree or a bachelor's degree with a minimum of 5 years of professional experience.
• 3 years of collegiate teaching experience beyond graduate assistantship
• Demonstrated professional experience in one or more of the following: hands-on making, industry production methods, physical computing, digital technology and fabrication, CNC machining, advanced manufacturing, and material experimentation.
• Professional portfolio that includes evidence of unique ideation and experimentation through physical prototyping, fabrication, and functional demonstration, with a strong understanding of materials, processes, tools, and production methods.
• Demonstrate a teaching ability to structure learning, facilitate student groups, and to advise undergraduate and graduate students.
• Demonstrated commitment to fostering equitable learning environments through inclusive, culturally responsive, accessible, and universally designed pedagogies to support critical engagement with art and design.
• Ability to work collaboratively with others (students, faculty, and staff) to create a supportive learning environment.
• Evidence of active program of research, creative practice, technological innovation, or professional engagement that contributes to the design field.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to translate technologies and processes into meaningful industrial design concepts and working prototypes, and to connect technical practice with critical and theoretical reflection.
• Potential to contribute to the future development and leadership of technology, making, and fabrication initiatives within the department of Industrial Design.
• Experience collaborating with technicians, fabrication specialists, engineers, researchers, manufacturers, or other interdisciplinary partners to develop projects, facilities, tools, or educational experiences.
• Experience developing or teaching that connects technical skills with design thinking, experimentation, critical making, and contemporary industrial design practice.

RISD/ Department Description

RISD is a nonprofit college and museum of art and design founded in 1877 in the city of Providence, RI. Today 2,606 students from 62 countries engage in more than 40 full-time bachelor's and master's degree programs, supported by a committed faculty and worldwide network of more than 33,000 alumni.

By cultivating expansive and elastic thinking, RISD equips artists, designers and scholars to generate and challenge the ideas that shape our world.

RISD has a critical review process, which is very similar to the tenure process at other institutions. RISD supports faculty professional practice with sabbaticals, pre-critical review leave, conference funds, and professional development grants. For more information about RISD, please visit www.risd.edu.

With 13 full-time faculty and 41part-time faculty, the Industrial Design departments runs 110 classes (per year) for 264 BFA candidates, 33 MID candidates, students from the joint Masters of Arts and Design Engineering (MADE) with Brown University, and a limited number of non-major students from across RISD and Brown.

The Industrial Design Department is aligned with RISD's efforts to shape more just societies, to address sustainability and the climate crisis, and to contribute new knowledge through creative inquiry and practice.

In Industrial Design we believe that designers must be critical makers and critical thinkers. To enable our students to learn, think, and lead, we use material making and material design to gain hands-on design experience; to explore how to apply these processes to new products, services, and systems; and to gain mastery of the mindsets and methods to create new and meaningful innovation. For more about the department visit: https://id.risd.edu/

Our alumni go on to become professional and academic leaders in a field that is no longer narrowly focused on the creation of industrial goods. They design the objects, experiences, services and systems that give shape to contemporary life and beyond.

Faculty Responsibilities

The full-time faculty teaching load is five teaching units a year, which in most departments correlates to teaching five courses per year. In addition to teaching, full-time faculty are expected to maintain a dynamic professional practice, serve on college committees, advise students, participate in curriculum development and other departmental and/or divisional activities and projects, and contribute to the vibrancy of the intellectual life of the college.

Union Yes Salary Information

For information about base pay for this position, please refer to Article XII "Salaries" (p. 19-22) in the Faculty Association Collective Bargaining Contract 2025-2028. . The contract indicates the minimum base salary for each rank.

Pre-employment Requirement

The successful candidate will be required to meet our pre-employment background screening requirements.

Special Instructions to Applicants

RISD Faculty Search Committees comprise colleagues from within and outside of the hiring Department.

Please attach the following to to the appropriate links in the section labeled "Documents Needed to Apply":

1.) Letter of intent that addresses the qualifications and responsibilities listed above (2 pages maximum)

2.) Curriculum vitae

3.) A teaching philosophy that describes your approach to inclusive pedagogy

and provides examples of how you have put it into practice, including through teaching, mentoring, or professional experience (2 pages maximum)

4.) Examples of two relevant syllabi for courses taught or proposed (if courses were team taught, highlight your contribution).

5.) Two brief course descriptions (an undergraduate skills course and an undergraduate studio) that you would be interested in teaching (Attach to the section labeled "Course Proposal(s)")

6.) Creative Work/Professional Work/Scholarship A portfolio of recent professional work (20 images maximum, in one PDF). The portfolio should include a brief statement to assist the committee in understanding the work and its relation to your research statement. URLs within the PDF to digital or motion work are allowable.

7.) A research statement that includes a summary of your area of interest, current goals, outcomes and future plans (Attach to the section labeled "Other 1")

8) A portfolio of up to 20 images in one PDF demonstrating your approach to teaching where possible these selections should reflect your teaching pedagogy and teaching philosophy . Candidates coming primarily from industry with limited formal academic teaching opportunities may include professional work in design mentoring, leading workshops, design sprints, onboarding or training activities and knowledge-sharing, with a brief statement describing the work and its relevance to your teaching or mentoring approach. URLs to digital or motion work may be included within the PDF.

9) A link to a personal professional website (optional)

Applications may not be edited once they are certified and submitted.

Only materials that have been requested will be considered.

Names and contact information for three references are requested as part of the application process at the finalist stage.

Review of applications begins immediately and continues until the position is filled. Candidates who submit their materials by January 5, 2027 are assured full consideration.

EEO Statement

RISD is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetics, or any other protected characteristic as established by law.

Posting Detail Information

Posting Number F00137P Open Date Close Date Open Until Filled Yes

Supplemental Questions

Required fields are indicated with an asterisk (*).

Documents Needed To Apply

Required Documents

• Cover Letter
• Curriculum Vitae
• Portfolio of Professional Work
• Supplemental Portfolio
• Teaching Philosophy
• Course Proposal(s)
• Sample Syllabi
• Other 1

Optional Documents

• Media File