Cameron Tonkinwise is leaving the School of Design at the end of this calendar year to take up the position of Full Professor at the University of New South Wales Art and Design in Sydney, Australia. Cameron is returning to his home city in part for family reasons. However, he is also excited by the opportunity to export his work over the last 4 years at CMU on Transition Design to a leading Design School in the Southern Hemisphere.
Cameron’s new position will also involve the establishment of an international partnership between UNSWAD and the School of Design for collaborative research, cotutelle PhDs, and student and faculty exchanges – all focused on the advancement of Transition Design. Cameron will maintain a courtesy appointment at the School of Design and plans to return annually to review doctoral candidates and teach Design Studies intensives.
Cameron has been the Director of Design Studies at the School of Design since 2012, and in that capacity was key to the development of the curricula for the new undergraduate and graduate degree programs. He re-established a spine of Design Studies courses and graduate seminars that introduce knowledge and skills that are core to the emerging field and practice of Transition Design. Cameron also developed the new Doctorate of Design degree program and relaunched the School’s Design PhD program with a focus on practice-based design research. The PhD currently has 10 candidates, the first due to complete in Summer of 2018, and the DDes 3 candidates.