Çağla Doğan

Biography

As a design educator and researcher, she has knowledge and experience at undergraduate and graduate levels. She has several years of teaching experience, including industrial design studios and related theory courses, as well as graduate thesis supervision. She has a well-established research focus on design for sustainability and numerous publications in this field. She also has much experience in interdisciplinary teams and learning. Holds a Ph.D. in product design for sustainability from the Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, and M.Sc. and B.ID. degrees in industrial design from the Department of Industrial Design, METU in Ankara where she has been founder and projects coordinator of the Sustain Design Research Lab.

Research Interest

 Her design-based research focuses on product design, design research and design education for sustainability, particularly integrated scales of design and production i.e. relationships among batch production, mass production, craft, do-it-yourself and open design; localization and personalization – product value, longevity and meaning; generative research for sustainability; and grounded theory and research through design. She has supervised graduate thesis students at doctoral and master’s level. Within the context of the undergraduate design studios, with her graduate students and studio team, she has developed Experience Reflection Modeling (ERM) as a generative research method, Experience Chart (EC) as a user observation tool, and Biomimicry Sketch Analysis (BSA) as an idea generation tool for undergraduate and graduate design education. These methods have been evaluated and developed through gathering feedback and gaining insights from the design students and the studio team. These two areas of graduate theses received Best Thesis Award in 2013 and 2015 respectively, which aims to bring together graduate research with undergraduate education for advancing design education and research for sustainability. In line with her design teaching, she has undertaken funded research projects that have aimed to develop sustainability considerations for small household appliances. Two of her thesis students have completed their research within the context of these funded projects focussing on post-use design considerations and resource effectiveness for household appliances.