"Designing for the unexpected" - The Inaugural Lecture of Professor Alison McKay

On the evening of Wednesday 16th April staff, students, industry partners and external academic colleagues joined together to hear Alison Mckay, Professor of Design Systems deliver her Inaugural Lecture entitled ‘ Designing for the unexpected’. Following the lecture, guests were treated to a buffet and reception where they had the opportunity to congratulate and speak to Professor McKay.

Professor Alison McKay joined Leeds as a research engineer. She was appointed as a lecturer in 1994 and her PhD, on relationships in product data, was awarded in 1996. Since 2001 she has led the launch of the University’s undergraduate programme in Product Design.

Her research interests lie in the area of design systems: including product definition, product development, shape computation, and enterprise engineering. The focus of her personal research lies in the establishment of systematic and, where possible, well-founded underpinnings for such systems, in particular, for the definition of product data. This has led to research on extended enterprise network structures and their alignment with the delivery of business strategy, and on issues in sustainable product design