About

I am an inclusive design researcher, product and fashion designer, and design lecturer. 

After 20 years of international design experience, I have recently relocated back to Belfast where I was born. I am a resident at Blick Studios where I work freelance on the workshopping and prototyping of a variety of design meets disability projects. 

I lecture part-time at NCAD in Dublin within their Department of Design for Body & Environment. I lead 1st years on the Circular by Design MA and Studio+ BDes students in Design for Social Good. I guide students through human-centred design practices and speculative future fashion systems that care for each other and our environment. 

I am also finishing the writing of my practice-based PhD thesis on inclusive participatory design methods, with a focus on clothing. This project is situated within the Department of Design at NTNU in Norway, where I have studied and worked since 2017. Through this research I explored, with neurodivergent communities, how to design more sensory nourishing environments. This project brought me full circle back to my early training as a tailor, considering clothing as our most immediate and intimate environment. This website documents this journey. 

At the heart of my practice is the relationships that I build with people’s lived experiences. I believe in co-creating knowledge collaboratively to empower people to have ownership over how design can improve their quality of life. I carry this ethos into product development through embodied ethnography, iterative prototyping, and testing with those who resonate with the product solutions in their everyday life.

If you are interested in collaborating, please reach out here for a chat!

Maureen xx