Professor Hua Dong

Director, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design
Vice-Chair of Design Research Society (DRS)
Acting Pro-Vice Chancellor Research and Innovation

A leading design researcher and educator, Hua has a global impact on inclusive design, healthy ageing, and design education.

Trained in Industrial Design, Architecture, and Engineering, Hua specialised in inclusive design research at University of Cambridge. She became Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design in 2025.

Hua has edited more than ten books/special issues on design for inclusion and universal access. She is Vice Chair and Fellow of the Design Research Society.

Her collaborative research on health and active ageing was featured in the Design Museum London and the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich.

Hua’s novel educational approach has been recognised by multiple awards. She is Chair of the QAA’s Subject Benchmark Statement (Art and Design) Advisory Committee.

School, Centre or Area

Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design

Expertise

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Research interests

Hua’s research combines creative and systematic approaches, and balances human-centred design and rigorous methodologies.

Hua’s research is focused on inclusive design. She has publications widely on:

Inclusive design processes
Human-centred design methodologies and co-design methods
Ergonomics and human factors
Designing for knowledge users
Design for healthy ageing

She has edited more than ten books/special issues on design for inclusion, universal access and assistive technology.

As Professor of Design, Hua is interested in:

Theories and practices of design
Design pedagogy
Design tools
Ethics and sustainability

Hua believes in interdisciplinary innovation; she has worked with many disciplines from music, computational linguistics, to physics.

Hua has supervised 17 PhD/EngD students to completion.

Practice

Hua’s engineering foundation, and design training at different scales (product-architecture-city) gave her unique insights into design for inclusion and sustainability.

She has developed skills to synthesise diverse stakeholder perspectives to balance user needs, design intent, and manufacturing requirements, winning ASME Award, and exhibited in London, Shanghai, Milan, and Zurich.

Hua has helped Ant Financial (part of the Alibaba Group) to develop China’s first industrial guidance on inclusive design, impacting on the improvement of their products’ accessibility.

Hua led Brunel design researchers to collaborate with PearsonLloyd and Kirton Healthcare to win ‘Design Bugs Out’ competition and delivered successful solutions to UK and European hospitals – shortlisted for the ‘Bris Insurance Design of the Year’ (2012).

Hua has helped technology companies (e.g., Zhida Technology), manufactures (e.g., ChenGuang, Reckitt Benckiser), and start-ups (e.g., Active Life Village in Finland) to improve their products and services. Her work with industry has resulted in quality improvement and design awards.

Research funding

Hua has won many research grants, e.g., from the EPSRC, AHRC, ESRC, TSB, British Council, Newton Fund, NESTA, and HEA.

She has been awarded several fellowships in the UK and China, e.g., AHRC SEED Fellowship, Dongfang Scholar Fellowship.

Awards

Engineering Heros: Top 50 Women in Engineering 2021, Women’s Engineering Society, 2021
Runner up for research EDI, Loughborough University, 2020
‘Best Supervisor’ voted by postgraduate students, Tongji University, 2017
Pujiang Scholar, Shanghai Higher Education Committee, 2014
ICED reviewer’s favourite paper (co-author), 2013
‘Design Bugs Out’ competition winner team, Design Council, 2009
Crucible Award, NESTA, 2008
BREIF Award, Brunel University, 2006
Competition winner, ASME, 2003
Full scholarship, University of Cambridge, 2002

Current and recent projects

AHRC SEED Fellowship, UK-China creative industries research and collaboration hub, £169,571.03 (AH/Y000722/1), Fellow/PI
2023-24
InnovateUK (EU Horizon) VOICE €1,034,521 (101135803), €149,961 to Brunel, Brunel PI (till Sept 2025) 2024-2025
British Council, Going Global Partnerships: Engineering Industrial Designers for a More Inclusive and Sustainable World £39,745.4 UK CI
Sustaining Inclusive Design Collaboration through Co-design Platforms’, £40,000 British Council, UK PI (until Aug 2020) 2020-2021. See the project outcome.

Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes

External collaborations and activities

Invited Keynote Speaker at the Design2026 Conference.
Board member of International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR), 2024.
Fellow of Design Research Society (DRS). Vice-Chair, Director and Trustee of the DRS. Convenor of its Inclusive Design Special Interest Group (InclusiveSIG).
Chair of the Advisory Group, Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) Subject Benchmark Statement. Embedding Accessibility, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion into the broad Art and Design curricula (including BSc, MSc, MEng, MDes degrees).
Inaugural Dean of Brunel Design School (2020-24), and Dean of the College of Art and Media (2014-18) at Tongji University. Founder of the Inclusive Design Research Centre in China.
Panel Member of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2020 and 2026, University Grant Committee (UGC) in Hong Kong.
Panel Member of the Research Excellence Framework REF2029, UK.

Supervised students

Current PhD student at RCA: Yuxi Zhai (started in 2026).

Hua has supervised 17 PhD/EngD students to successful completion, with three more completion of visiting PhD students she co-supervised.

Hua was a PhD examiner of University of Cambridge, Nottingham University, Sheffield Hallam University, Loughborough University, Coventry University, Royal College of Arts, Tongji University, University of Leeds, Open University, and KU Leuven

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