Sarah Moriarty BA(Hons)MA PGcert TLHE PGCE

Senior Lecturer in Product Design

I am an experienced Senior Lecturer, having taught Product Design in Higher Education for over 15 years (Liverpool John Moores University, Salford University, Manchester Metropolitan University). I have an in-depth understanding of the subject and have embraced the subject’s developments in Design Thinking, human-centred approaches and the repositioning of product design to being less concerned with creating more stuff and instead creating more value to society with minimal environmental impact.

The experience of working in a multi-national industry developed my skills in critical creative thinking, resulting in a career long interest in understanding creative methods and their use within the design process. I have substantial experience in designing and delivering and assessing exciting project briefs to motivate, inspire and challenge students and strive to link projects and methods to industry so learners experience, explore and practise transferrable skills needed for their own employability.

Working with PD over lockdown led us to engage with the online teaching platform Miro: creating a robust, effective online teaching platform with a total focus on the student experience, a remote but supportive and inclusive design community. Now back in the studio, we have reflected on the experience and have co-written a research paper that has recently been accepted for publication:
Title: From Sharing Screens to Sharing Spaces. Extended Case Study in a Special Issue of ‘Design and Technology Education: an International Journal’.
Embedding the virtual portfolio into every delivered project throughout this academic year has led to us writing a further paper: Title: A Slight Return: Developing an Augmented Design Studio Pedagogy which has been accepted by E&PDE (Engineering and Product Design Education) and we will be presenting this paper at the 'Disrupt, Innovate, Regenerate & Transform' 24th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education at London South Bank University in September 2022.

Internal and external Networks have also been developed and nurtured within Product Design Units across the programme, connecting our students to live knowledge transfer opportunities enables them to design from a better informed and empathic foundation.
Our external network includes the University of the 3rd Age (U3A) with whom our students worked to co-design alternative solutions to blister packaging. "Intergenerational working is something u3a members rarely get the opportunity to do and they appreciated being able to engage with the students on a project that is so important to them. They really valued being consulted and having the students listen to, and understand the difficulties of using blister packaging, then working on designs that could potentially bring improvements" Sandi Rickersby, U3A. This working relationship has led us to connect with George Lee, Royal College of Art Design Ageing Institute, who is publishing a manifesto to to be presented to the Government in summer 2022 demanding that frustrating products (like blister packs) be redesigned for a better later life. Our student work is part of the manifesto and we look forward to working with the U3A and the DAI again in the near future.
Internal networks have led our team to the MMU Faculty of Education, where we connected our students to senior academics and Level 6 Early Years Education students who introduced our Level 5 PD students to the theories of play: building a solid foundation of early years learning knowledge for our students to build from. This project has led to us partnering with a MMU postgraduate architect and mathematicians to reimagine Froebel's gifts as part of a funded research project.

I have a First Class degree in Industrial Design and an MA (with Commendation) in Industrial Design. I have a PGCTLHE completed with First Class and am a member of the Higher Education Academy.