Rate My Professor Miles Pennington

Miles Pennington serves as Professor of Design Led Innovation at the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, with an additional appointment as Professor in the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies. He earned a Master of Arts degree from the Innovation Design Engineering program at the Royal College of Art in London in 1992, a joint program with Imperial College. His professional experience began in 1993 at the Sekisui Design Center in Osaka. In 1997 he established the design company Design Stream in the United Kingdom. He joined the Royal College of Art as a lecturer in 2002 and was appointed Professor in the Innovation Design Engineering department in 2008, later serving as Head of Programme. In 2012 he founded the international Global Innovation Design exchange program and served as its Head. Pennington moved to Japan in 2017 to take up his current professorship at The University of Tokyo, where he also acts as Co-Director of the DLX Design Lab and DLX Design Academy. Since 2023 he has held concurrent roles at the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies and the Institute of Industrial Science. He additionally serves as Special Assistant to the President of The University of Tokyo and as prospective Dean of the newly established UTokyo College of Design.

Pennington’s work centers on design-led innovation, fostering collaborations between design and scientific research through international and interdisciplinary projects. His appointments reflect a career dedicated to advancing innovation at the intersection of design, engineering, and technology across institutions in the United Kingdom and Japan.