I am a Distinguished Professor of Design Management and Policy at Lancaster University and Founding Director of ImaginationLancaster, an open and exploratory design-led research centre.

My Fellowship was undertaken in 1980, in Germany and Switzerland, looking at the change happening in the printing industry and especially the advent of computers and word processing. The Fellowship led me to complete a PhD in Design, the first woman in the UK to get a PhD in that subject, and shortly afterwards Apple produced their first computer on which you could design and print books.

From then my career flourished and I have been an academic leader with 30 years' research experience, leading large interdisciplinary research programmes related to design, working with industry, communities, policymakers and government. For example, I was a Lead Expert for the UK Government Foresight programme on the Future of Cities (2013-2016), and was on the UK Academy of Medical Sciences working group addressing The Health of the Public 2040 (2015-2016).

My work is on health, wellbeing and the design of products, places and services. In 2013 I was awarded the OBE for Services to Education.