معرفی
Nick Dulake is a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Industrial Designer at Sheffield Hallam University, with significant affiliations across multiple research centers. He works within the Sheffield Institute of Social Sciences, Lab4Living, Art Design and Media Research Centre, and Culture and Creativity Research Institute. As co-founder of the Digital Materiality Lab (DML), he leads innovative research exploring how digital and material worlds interact.
With over 25 years of industrial design experience, Dulake applies user-centered and co-design methodologies across diverse sectors including e-health, digital heritage, and wearable medical products. His collaborations with clients like English Heritage, Kenwood, adidas, Trulife, and Unilever have produced multiple patents and commercial products. His specialist interests include digital physical interfaces, tangible interaction, industrial design, heritage interaction, advanced manufacturing, 3D printing, and HCI.
Dulake's recent publications reveal a strong focus on co-design methodologies applied to healthcare, heritage interpretation, and digital-material hybridity. His work consistently emphasizes user-centered approaches, particularly with vulnerable populations including children with medical conditions and older adults. The research spans tangible interaction design, museum experiences, and digital health interventions, demonstrating interdisciplinary collaboration across computer science, design, and healthcare domains.
As a PhD supervisor, Dulake guides research in co-design, tangible interaction, healthcare, robotic acceptance, and heritage. His current supervisees include Julia Keyte (Material Meaning), Hannah Taylor (The Once And Future Wall), and Ursula Ankeny (Co-designed technology for pediatric long-term condition management). Previous students have explored topics including collaborative robotics acceptance, 3D printing in museums, and tangible interaction in house museums.
Dulake leads significant research projects including the Arctic Office NERC project on 3D printing in Greenland (2024-2025), the Future Home Air Quality project (2023-2025), the Virtual Reality Prosthetics Training System (2017-2023), and the meSch project (2013-2018). These projects demonstrate his commitment to applying design thinking to solve complex challenges in healthcare, environmental monitoring, and cultural heritage.
As co-founder of the Digital Materiality Lab, Dulake explores how digital and material worlds collide, fuse, converge or clash. The lab investigates human interaction with hybrid materials, autonomous objects, and responsive environments, pushing design boundaries through advanced manufacturing and digital technologies.
