Lining Yao
Berkeley
What Is a (Future) Designer?
October 31, 2025
What is a designer today, and what will the designer of tomorrow become? In an era of ecological and societal urgency and possibility—where the biotic meets the abiotic, the virtual merges with the physical, and artificial collides with physical intelligence—design can no longer be confined to products or interfaces. Instead, it is transforming into a boundary-crossing practice that orchestrates science, engineering, and art in harmony. Lining argues that design, as a way of thinking and acting, uniquely holds this power to integrate knowledge, methods, and creativity across disciplines.
Through the lens of morphing matter—bio-derived, reconfigurable, and sustainable materials capable of sensing, actuation, and computation, and a central area of exploration in Lining Yao's lab—this talk examines how design can transcend traditional categories to shape emerging technologies and ecological futures. Case studies in food, forests, robotics, and engineering materials highlight how designers must become environmentally responsible, data-driven, and capable of co-designing with AI. They must hold “dual citizenship,” moving fluently between the physical and digital worlds, and break boundaries—merging product, interface, architecture, landscape, and even natural and artificial life. Rather than becoming obsolete, the designer of the future will be a catalyst for transformation, asking radically different questions and paving unprecedented paths toward sustainable, intelligent, and meaningful futures.
Lining Yao is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where she directs the Morphing Matter Lab (https://morphingmatter.org). She also holds courtesy appointments with the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Yao's research explores how active and morphing materials and structures can advance sustainable and responsive design for both planetary and human well-being. Her work spans the discovery of novel morphing mechanisms, the development of computational design and fabrication pipelines, and the creation of adaptive material systems that embed responsiveness into everyday life. Her projects have been supported by major funding agencies including an NSF CAREER Award, the Department of Defense MURI, and the NSF Growing Convergent Research (GCR) program, as well as several prestigious fellowships and chair appointments. She has published in Nature, Science Advances, and leading ACM venues, and her research has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, Wired, National Geographic, BBC, and other international media. Dr. Yao received her Ph.D. from the MIT Media Lab in 2017. Before joining UC Berkeley, she was a tenure-track faculty member at Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. She is co-founder of the MorphingMatter4Girls Initiative, a Wired UK Fellow, a board director of the 4D Printing Society, a core faculty of the Berkeley Institute for Robot Design, and an appointed eco-design instructor with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. |
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