Faculty

Profile

Professor Mariana Amatullo is a practitioner-scholar, academic administrator, and design strategist with a global practice. She is a core faculty member of the School of Design Strategies (SDS), where she has taught since 2017, and a founding faculty member of the Graduate Minor in Civic Service Design.

Mariana's research and consulting emphasize the role of design as a cognitive approach to transforming organizational culture and driving social innovation. Mariana co-edited Design for Social Innovation: Case Studies from Around the World (Routledge, 2021), which offers an extensive exploration of the social innovation landscape through 45 global case studies. Her upcoming monograph, Inflection Point: Confessional Biographies about Design Purpose and Impact (working title, 2026), profiles an international cadre of award-winning designers who have made transformative impacts addressing socio-economic issues and inequities in public policy and government, health, education, and the built environment.

Since joining The New School, Mariana has served in senior academic leadership positions focused on innovation in the Provost's Office. She co-chaired a university-wide initiative on management education and entrepreneurship in 2017, and since then has held a series of Vice-Provost roles, most recently as Vice Provost and Academic Dean for Continuing and Professional Education (CPE). In this capacity, she has spearheaded global partnerships and pedagogical innovation in online and hybrid learning, while overseeing the development of programs and certificates in fields such as creativity and AI, speculative design, biodesign, DEI and social justice, fashion studies, and luxury management, to name a few. These offerings cater to a diverse audience, of learners, ranging from youth and pre-college students to entrepreneurs and executives. Under her leadership, Parsons Executive Education was launched, enhancing The New School’s global standing in the creative and design sectors through strategic academic and corporate partnerships.  A key component of her scholarship is the "Return on Design" conceptual framework, which showcases her unique perspective on a "design attitude," to management and its potential for societal impact. Learn more about this framework through her insights shared here.

Recognized as a 2024 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow for her upcoming monograph, she is a Global Fellow with the Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce (RSA) and a Fellow with Salzburg Global. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the inaugural DELL Award for Outstanding Social Innovation Education and a sought-after international keynote speaker on design for social innovation. She actively serves on juries, academic journals, and advisory boards across the arts and design sectors. Currently, she is a trustee on the Board of Aalto University in Finland and an Honorary President of the global Cumulus Association of Art and Design Education and Research.

Before her tenure at The New School, Mariana co-founded and led the award-winning Designmatters department at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California from 2001 to 2017, establishing more than 100 partnerships nationally and internationally focusing on social innovation. A native of Argentina and the daughter of a diplomat, she brings a distinct global perspective to her work. Her education is equally diverse: Mariana holds a Ph.D. in Management (Designing Sustainable Systems) from Case Western Reserve University, an M.A. in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of Southern California, a Licence en Lettres from the Sorbonne, and studies in Art History at L’École du Louvre in Paris.

Degrees Held

PhD, Management (Designing Sustainable Systems), Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. M.A. Art History and Museum Studies, University of Southern California. License en Lettres, Paris IV, Sorbonne.

Professional Affiliation

Board Service and Service to The Field 

• Board Member, Aalto University (since 2022).
• Honorary President, Cumulus, the global association of art and design education and research (President from 2019 to 2022). Board Member for 2 consecutive terms (2016-2019) and (2013-2016).
• TNS Faculty Representative and Advisory Board Member, The New School Vera List Center for Arts and Politics (2018- 2021).
• Founding Circle and Advisory Council Member, Winterhouse Institute, Symposium on Design Education for Social Change, (2009-present).
• Editorial Board Member, She-Ji Journal (since May 2024).
• Editorial Board Member, DIID Journal, University of Bologna (2021- present).
• Editorial Board Member, Revista Diseña, Universidad Catolica, Chile (2017-present).
• Editorial Board Member, Journal of Design Research (JDR) (2018- present).
• Fellow, Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residents.
• Fellow, Royal Society of the Arts (RSA).
• Fellow, Salzburg Global.
• Betta Gamma Sigma Honors Society. 

Juries 

• Jury Chair (Academics), Chile Diseño 2024
• Juror, Seoul Design Award, 2024 and 2023.
• Design Advisor and Jury Chair, The Vilcek Foundation Prize, Design Category 2023-24.
• Juror, Frontier Design Prize, Shanghai, 2024, 2023 and 2022. 
• Juror, The Index Award, Diseño Responde, 2023, 2022 and 2021.
• Juror, IF Talent Design Award, 2022.
• Juror, JumptheGap, ROCA competition, 2021. 
• Juror, The One Show Award, 2020.
• Strategic Lead for the international student Cumulus Green competitions: Nurturing Our Planet (2022) and For a New Circular Economy (2020) 
• Juror, Human City Design Award, Seoul Metropolitan Government in collaboration with UNESCO’s Cities of Design Network, 2019.
• Juror, “Play Everywhere Challenge,” national design competition for community-driven solutions that integrate play into urban spaces. Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Target, The US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Endowment of the Arts and Playworld, (2016).
• Chair and Juror, National Design Awards. Smithsonian Design Museum, Cooper-Hewitt, New York, (2016).
• Juror, World Design Impact Prize, International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID). Biennial Award that celebrates industrial design excellence for a better world, (2015).
• Panelist, National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works 2015 Grant-Making cycle,
  in the category of Design.
• Juror, 2012 Sappi Ideas that Matter Design Competition.
• Jury Captain, Educational Initiatives, CORE77 2012 Awards.

Recent Publications

Amatullo, M and Gady, Isabella. "Here to Stay: Design-led Recovery from COVID-19 in New York," in Design and COVID-19: From Reaction to Reslience, Rachel Cooper and Louise Mullagh, eds. Bloombsbury Academic, 2023.

Amatullo, M. "Why a Design Attitude Matters in a World in Flux," in Flourish by Design. Rachel Cooper and Gemma Coupe, eds. Routledge, 2023.

Amatullo, M. "In Plain Sight," in Unfolding the Public Art at Aalto University, Outi Turpienen ed. Aalto University Press, 2023.

Amatullo, M. (co-edited with Bryan Boyer, Jennifer May and Andrew Shea). Design for Social Innovation: Case Studies from Around the World, Routledge, 2021

Amatullo, M."Mariana Amatullo on Leadership," Design Observer Collective Newsletter, March 2021.

Amatullo, M. Invited Paper, “Innovation and Resilience: The Global Design’s Community Response to COVID-19.”  Strategic Design Research Journal, Vol 13, No. 3, 2021.

Amatullo, M and Shea, A (2020). "Human Rights,"  in Designing in Dark Times edited by Staszowski E. & Tassinari, V., Bloomsbury.

Amatullo, M. (2020). “Caring for what we leave behind: Ethical Considerations in Design for Social Innovation Pedagogy,” in  Ethics in Design and Communication: New Critical Perspectives, edited by Scherling, L. and deRosa, A., Bloomsbury. 

Amatullo, M. (2019). Designing the Future We Want, in Dialectic: a scholarly journal of thought leadership, education and practice in the discipline of visual communication design, Vol.2, Issue 2.

Amatullo, M., Lyytinen, K., and Tang, Jing (2019). Measuring a Design Attitude in Accelerating Social Innovation: Scale Development and Validation. Academy of Management Annual Conference Proceedings, Boston. 

Penin, L.; Staszowski, E.; Bruce, J.; Adams, B. and Amatullo, M. (2019). Public Libraries as Engines for Democracy: A research and pedagogical case study on designing for reentry, Nordes 2019 Proceedings, Who Cares? Espoo, Finland.

Buchanan, C., Amatullo, M. and Staswoski, E.(2019): "Building the Civic Design field in New York City," Revista Diseña, 14 (158-183), Escuela de Diseño of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. 

Amatullo, M. (2018). “Design for Play in Social Innovation,” in Designing for Kids: Creating for Playing, Learning, and Growing  by Krystina Castella, Routeledge.

Amatullo, M., Gottlieb, D., Herscovitch, P. and Ramshaw, S. (2018)  Book chapter: “Educating the Next Generation of Social Innovators: Designmatters at ArtCenter, ” in Public Interest Design Education Guidebook: Curricula, Strategies, and SEED Academic Case Studies, edited by Lisa Abendroth and Bryan Bell. Routledge.

Amatullo, M. and May, J.(2018). "Embedding Designers in Government: A Case Study about Complexity," in Proceedings of Emerging Practices: Design in Complexity, the Design Research and Education Conference 2016, Tongji University, School of Design and Innovation.

Amatullo, M., May, J., and Shea, A (2017): LEAP Dialogues: The Educator's Guide,(Designmatters at ArtCenter.

Amatullo, M. chapter. Organizational Design in a Social Innovation Context, in Yee, J, Jefferies, E. & Michlewski, K. (2016). Transformations: 7 Roles to Drive Change by Design. Amsterdam: BIS.

Amatullo, M. (2016). LEAP Dialogues: Career Pathways in Design for Social Innovation (Lead editor with eds. Bryan Boyer, Liz Danzico and Andrew Shea. Designmatters at ArtCenter College of Design.

Amatullo, M. (2016). "Insights from Integrating a Design Attitude Approach to the Ecosystem of International Development,"  20th DMI Academic Design Management Conference. Inflection Point: Design Research Meets Design Practice, Boston.

Amatullo, M and Fabian, Christopher. Chapter: The UNICEF Experience of Innovation, A Conversation, in Ramalingam, B. and Bound, K. Innovation in International Development: Insights for Navigating the Paths and Pitfalls. April 2016. NESTA, UK. 

Amatullo, M. (April 2014). “Codifying Practices in an Emergent Space: Insights from the LEAP Symposium on the New Professional Frontier of Design for Social Innovation.” Journal of Design Principles and Practices: Annual Review Issue. Common Ground Publishing.

Performances and Appearances

[SELECTED]

2025

Invited Lecture, International Winter School, Glasgow School of Art, Highlands and Islands Campus, Forres, Scotland, April 7-11.

Invited Lecture, MDE Program, Harvard GSD, March 7. 

2024

Scholar-in-Residence, Glasgow School of Art, Highlands and Islands Campus, Forres, Scotland, December 5-15.

Keynote Lecture, Creative Leaders Series, EAAD, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico, November 19. 

Keynote Lecture and Graduate Student Workshop, Besign, The Sustainable Design School, Nice, France, May 13.

Invited Lecture, Dean Design Lecture Series, RMIT School of Design, Melbourne, Australia, April 22.

Keynote Lecture and Faculty Workshops, Escuela de Diseño, Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD), Santiago, Chile, March 22-23.

Keynote Lecture, HSLU, Design Management Distinguished Lecture Series, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Art, Lucerne & Virtual, January 23.

2023

Keynote Speaker, International Conference on Art, Craft, and Design (ICON-ARCADE), Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia, October 12-13.

Track Lead, Service Design Days: Leadership Summit, Barcelona, Spain, September 15-16. 

Kenynote Speaker, Unlearning Realities, Teaching and Learning Seminar, La Salle College of the Arts, Singapore, August 1-2.

Keynote Speaker, World Design Cities Conference, Shanghai, China in collaboration with UNESCO, September 26.

Keynote Speaker, School of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai, China, September 24.

Keynote Panelist, In Session RCA: Expand, Stretching the Future of Design, Royal College of Art, London, UK and Virtual, January 11.

2022

Keynote Speaker, Design Camp, Yale School of Management, New Haven, December 9.

Keynote Speaker, Congreso IDEA 2022, Facultad de Artes de la Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador and Virtual, December 7-14.

Keynote Speaker, SID13,  Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Xochilmico, Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico,October 26-28.

Keynote Speaker, Design Muscat, Oman Scientific College of Art and Design, Muscat,Oman, June 13-15. 

Keynote Speaker, World Design Organization, Design Research and Education Forum, Virtual, February 22. 

Profile, Aalto Leaders’ Insight. “New Leadership Perspectives.” Vol.10.  

Podcast Interview, German DDCAST. Podcast Episode 86. “What is Good? Mariana Amatullo, the Chief Diplomat of Social Design,” with Georg-Christof Bertsch,  April 2022.

Podcast Interview, The Deep Dive. Podast Episode 107. Design for Social Innovation: A Conversation with Dr. Mariana Amatullo, Bryan Boyer and Andrew Shea. With Philip McKenzie, April 2022.

2021

Profile, The New School Blog, Mariana Amatullo Aalto University Appointment.  December 6, 2021.

Keynote Speaker, Design for Social Innovation Today: Case Studies from a dynamic global field, Cumulus +Adada Educational Symposium, December 4-5, 2021.

Keynote Opening, Cumulus Guayaquil: Arts Imagining Communities to Come, Universidad de las Artes, November 2021.

Profile, Mariana Amatullo appointed to Aalto University Board, Aalto University, October 28, 2021.

Podcast Interview, Design for Transition Podcast, Carnegie Mellon, El Potencial del Diseno para potenciar un cambio de actitudes en educacion y redes, October 2021.

Podcast Interview, Mariana Amatullo on Design For Social Innovation with Roy Sharples, Unknown Origins Podcast, August 2021. 

Opening Remarks, Cumulus + New European Bauhaus Initiative, Cumulus Connects Global Conversation, (Virtual) August 26, 2021

Podcast Interview, Mariana Amatullo on Design for Social Innovation and Maintaining a Design Attitude, Shaping Chaos Podcast, March 2021.

Keynote Speaker, Imagination Summit,” Flourish Together,” Lancaster University, UK (Virtual), March 18, 2021. 

Keynote Panelist, “Design Education and Play: the Social Innovation Imperative,” Industry Panel, “Toy’Ing with Design,” Ahmedabad Design Week (ADW 2021), February 3-7, 2021.

2020

Keynote Panelist, Ministerio de la Cultura, las Artes y El Patrimonio, Chile, "Design Attitude & El Nuevo Compromiso del Diseño," Mes del Diseño,  November 5, 2020. 

Keynote Speaker, Open Design Afrika Festival, Cape Town, "The Power, Role and Future of Design Education, October 29, 2020 

Panelist, CumulusConnects, "The Changing Needs of Design Education: A Global View," September 11, 2020.

Keynote, ArchiNet, "Designing for Reslience in Uncertain Times," August 6. 2020

2019

Milano Management Brown Bag Series, "Why a Design Attitude Matters: Measuring the Impact of Designers in Organizational Change," The New School, New York, October 3, 2019.

Human City Design Award keynote lecture, September 26, 2019, Seoul, Korea. 

Design Thinking Research Center, Yonsei University invited lecture, " Towards a Design Attitude for Social Innovation and Organizational Change," September 24, Seoul, Korea. 

Regenerating Good International Symposium keynote lecture, "Bringing a Design Attitude to Social Change," September 11, New York. 

Design and Diaspora Podcast, “El Diseno Importa: Una charla con Mariana Amatullo,”  February 24, 2019.https://anchor.fm/disenoydiaspora/episodes/Ep14-El-diseo-importa--Una-charla-con-Mariana-Amatullo-e3a4lm.

Television Regional Channel Canal 4, Expert Interview on design for social innovation. Cali, Colombia, February 22, 2019.

2018

The Design of Business, The Business of Design. Podcast Interview with Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfland, Yale School of Management and Design Observer, New Haven, CT., September 2018.

Eye on Design. The World Most Sustainable Corporations Might Surprise You and Other Lessons from Design Educator Mariana Amatullo. Interview by Billie Muren. September 2018.

Salzburg Global Seminar Report. Interview. The Shock of the New: Arts, Technology and Making Sense of the Future, September 3, 2018. https://www.salzburgglobal.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Documents/2010-2019/2018/Session_593/SalzburgGlobal_Report_593__email_.pdf

El Clarin, ARQ (Argentina). OpEd. Mariana Amatullo. “El rol cambiante del diseño en el contexto de innovacion social,” August 2018.

Base Diseño e Innovacion Journal. (Universidad del Desarrollo, Facultad de Diseño, Santiago, Chile). International Interview: Mariana Amatullo, Diseño en IberoAmerica. Issue 3, July 2018.

http://diseno.udd.cl/publicacion/numero-3/ and http://diseno.udd.cl/files/2018/07/05_B3_Entrevistas.pdf

Oslo Manifesto. Q&A with Dr. Mariana Amatullo. Sustainable Design is not a choice but an imperative, March 2018.  http://oslomanifesto.org/qa-with-dr-mariana-amatullo/

2017

Eye on Design AIGA, What will a designer + their job look like in 2025?, Emily Gosling, October 25, 2017. https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/what-will-a-design-job-in-2025-look-like/.

Dot Magazine, Mariana Amatullo: A legacy of creativity and compassion, by ArtCenter President Lorne Buchman, October 27, 2017. http://www.artcenter.edu/connect/dot-magazine/articles/mariana-amatullo-legacy-compassion-creativity.html

Revista Diseña Magazine, Safe Niños y Fresh Eyes Cuba: Mariana Amatullo y el Diseño de Innovacion Social, por Catalina Mansanilla, Renato Bernasconi y Ximena Ulibarri, October 2017, http://www.revistadisena.com/numeros/once/

Research Interests

Design for social innovation, public sector design, leadership and design innovation, design and organizational culture, design management, strategy, design theory.

Awards And Honors

[Selected]

_ Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency, for upcoming monograph, Inflection Point, 2024.

_ Recipient, Shanghai 100 International Designers, UNESCO World Design Cities Conference, September 2023. 

_  Recipient (with coeditors Bryan Boyer, Jennifer May and Andrew Shea) of the 2019 Sappi Ideas that Matter Award for Design for Social Innovation: Case Studies from Around the World (Routledge, 2021). 

_ Recipient, Design Incubation Educators Award, Service category (with Jennifer May and Andrew Shea, co-editors), for LEAP Dialogues: The Educators  Guide (Designamtters at ArtCenter, 2017)

_ Global Fellow, Salzburg Global Seminar (since 2018)

_ Fellow, Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) (since 2017)

_ Innovation and Non-Profit Fellow, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University (2011-2015)

_ Recipient, 2014 Core77 Awards, Educational Initiatives Category, for the Media Design Practices: Field Program curriculum (with former MDP at ArtCenter Chair Anne Burdick and ArtCenter MDP faculty).

_ Recipient, 2012 Fast Company, “50 Creative Pioneers: Designers Shaping the Future.”

_ Recipient,  2012  Inaugural Dell Social Innovation Award in Outstanding Social Innovation Education.