Skip navigation

Professor Joyce Sheau Roei Yee

Professor

Department: Northumbria School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries

I am a design researcher, author and designer in the areas of design and social innovation, service design and interaction design.I am a Professor of Design and Social Innovation at Northumbria School of Design. I hold a BFA in Graphic Design, an MA in Visual Communication and a PhD in Design. I lead the subject development in the school at various undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral levels. I primarily teach undergraduate Interaction Design students and supervise a number of doctoral students in the subject of service design, design and social innovation and emergent interaction design practices.

My research focuses on the role, value and impact of design in organisational context. Specifically, I am interested in the ways design is used to support, enable and drive change through the creation of innovative practices in organisations. I was the lead investigator for the Valuing Design project, an AHRC funded research that identified and mapped the impact and value of design in public and voluntary and community sector organisations. Building on this work, my 2017 book, Transformations: 7 Roles to Drive Change by Design introduces 7 roles that design play in driving change in organisations. This book builds on a previous book, Design Transitions (2013) that explored how design practices are changing and identified a key requirement for designers to externalise their approaches and demonstrate value beyond design in service innovation projects. 

Extending my interest in design in social spaces, I co-founded the Designing Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific network (www.desiap.org) with Yoko Akama at RMIT, Australia. DESIAP (previously funded by the AHRC Research Network grant) is a research platform, a community of practice, and a network for collaboration and ongoing knowledge sharing for various practitioners, researchers, communities, and professionals working in the Social Innovation space in the UK and the Asia-Pacific region. I also co-founded the inaugural Research Through Design (RTD) conference with Jayne Wallace as an experimental conference series for disseminating practice-based design research.

Campus Address

Squires Annexe, Room 108
City Campus
Newcastle
NE1 8ST

Joyce is Professor of Design and Social Innovation at Northumbria School of Design, UK. She is passionate about designing for social good and advocates for culturally diverse and locally relevant practices that challenge the dominant industrialized and western-centric models of design.

She co-founded the Designing Entangled Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific network (www.desiap.org) in 2015 with Dr Yoko Akama, RMIT in Australia, as a peer learning network for social innovation practitioners using design. Her ongoing work through the network ranges from seeking to understand cultural practices of designing, to repositioning the role of impact evaluation in designing social innovation (DSI) practices, to exploring how relationships are enabled and supported in DSI initiatives. 

Her work is framed through a critical praxis lens that seek to contribute to the decentring of dominant Design narratives, through the recognition of different practices, knowledges and wisdoms. Recent collaborative research includes an investigation into the societal impact of creative districts in Thailand and an application of a reflective learning approach to social impact measurement. Her current research focuses on addressing intersectional barriers for women through a mentorship programme supporting women in social innovation and creative economy sectors in the Asia-Pacific region. 

  • Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
  • Invisible Designing: Emotional and Affective Labour in Relational Participatory Practices, Yee, J., Akama, Y., Avendano Franco, A., Chen, K., Imanishi, H., Kikuchi, Y., Kushinsky, S., Ralston, N., Teasley, S., Teerapong, K. 31 Aug 2024, PDC '24: Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2024: Exploratory Papers and Workshops - Volume 2, New YorK, US, ACM
  • Recasting ‘shadows’: expanding respectful hierarchies in participatory design practices, Akama, Y., Chen, K., Imanishi, H., Kikuchi, Y., Kushinsky, S., Teasley, S., Teerapong, K., Yee, J. 29 Aug 2024, PDC '24: Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2024: Full Papers - Volume 1, New York, USA, ACM
  • Building a shared relational identity: shifting notions of self in designing social innovation, Petrella, V., Yee, J. 28 Nov 2023, ServDes.2023, Linkoping, Sweden, Linkoping University Electronic Press
  • Calling on “aunties” and “nieces”: Empowering women in creative sectors in Southeast Asia through designing mentorship, Yee, J., Teerapong, K., Akama, Y. 17 Nov 2023, Entanglements of Designing Social Innovation in the Asia-Pacific, New York, US, Routledge
  • Entanglements of Designing Social Innovation in the Asia-Pacific, Akama, Y., Yee, J. 17 Nov 2023
  • Celebrating the plurality of design research, Rodgers, P., Yee, J. 31 Jul 2023, The Routledge Companion to Design Research, Abingdon, Routledge

  • Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
  • Other: Adjunct Professor (Taylor's University, Malaysia) 2022
  • Examination: Programme External Examiner (Lancaster University) 2021
  • Other: Adjunct Professor (RMIT, Australia) 2019
  • Other: Programme External Examiner (Kingston University, UK) 2017
  • Other: Programme External Examiner (Royal College of Art, UK) 2017
  • Other: Programme External Examiner (University of South Wales, UK) 2016
  • Other: Programme External Examiner (Ballyfermot College of Further Education) 2012
  • Other: Programme External Examiner (Dundee University, UK) 2012
  • Examination: PhD Examination (External and Internal) 2012

  • Viola Petrella The role and value of relationships in Design and Social Innovation: insights from Asia Pacific contexts Start Date: 01/10/2018 End Date: 07/03/2023
  • Anthony Forsyth The Design of Poetic Things Start Date: 12/11/2013 End Date: 18/11/2020
  • Kiersten Hay Growing Forward Together: Exploring the Design of Social Support Interventions alongside Women Living with HIV in the UK Start Date: 11/06/2020 End Date: 19/11/2022
  • Katie Hill Place in social design Surfacing and working with characteristics of place in social design Start Date: 18/01/2021
  • Sarah Kiden Explorations Towards Designing Trustworthy Internet of Things with Communities Start Date: 19/11/2020 End Date: 25/06/2024
  • Christopher Wilson Post-digital Letterpress Practice: Integrating Digital Manufacturing Tools with Letterpress Printing Start Date: 01/04/2014 End Date: 04/03/2023
  • David Parkinson Developing an Understanding of Storytelling at the Design Pitch: Relating Approach to Impact Start Date: 20/09/2010 End Date: 25/03/2015
  • Mark Green Design interventions: Revealing, initiating and sustaining communities of design practice within organisations Start Date: 23/03/2016 End Date: 10/11/2017
  • Cyril Tjahja Reorienting and Sustaining Design and Social Innovation: Insights from Asia-Pacific Practices Start Date: 01/10/2015 End Date: 04/03/2020

Design Studies PhD September 01 2003


a sign in front of a crowd
+

Northumbria Open Days

Open Days are a great way for you to get a feel of the University, the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and the course(s) you are interested in.

Research at Northumbria
+

Research at Northumbria

Research is the life blood of a University and at Northumbria University we pride ourselves on research that makes a difference; research that has application and affects people's lives.

NU World
+

Explore NU World

Find out what life here is all about. From studying to socialising, term time to downtime, we’ve got it covered.


Latest News and Features

Volunteering builds inroads and supports communities. In this photo, UN Volunteers interview community members to assess basic health services in the rural areas of Rwanda. Copyright UNV, 2023
HICSA partners at the site
Jupiter with a spot visible at the south pole
Image of mother and baby
Imogen Russell sitting on a sofa
Dr Rosie Morris, Director of Northumbria University’s Physiotherapy Innovation Laboratory.
More news
More events

Upcoming events

Commercialising Social Sciences for Impact
Northumbria University Carol Service
The Future of Evaluation in Health and Social Care Symposium
-

Back to top