Kumari M C

Assistant Professor in Product Design & Innovation, Maynooth University, National University of Ireland Maynooth

I am an Assistant Professor in Product Design & Innovation at the Department of Design Innovation, Maynooth University. I am also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, and the founder of OctoPii AI, a startup developing AI-enabled smart learning technologies. I have over fifteen years of experience in leading new product development teams, both software and tangible products.

K.M.Chandran, Remote Synchronous Collaboration in Industrial Design Teams. Springer. (2026)

About me

I received my PhD from the Department of Design and Manufacturing, under the Division of Mechanical Sciences, at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. I received my MPhil degree in Environmental Design in Architecture from the Departement of Architecture, University of Cambridge, UK, and MDes in Product Design & Engineering from the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (now the Dept. of Design & Manufacturing), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. I received a five-year professional Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Anna University, Chennai.

Prior to joining Maynooth, for over eight years I served as the Program Manager and Research Scientist of the National Design Innovation Network (NDIN) platform, a Government of India-sponsored project at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, housed at the Department of Design and Manufacturing. I conceptualised the application and managed continuous R&D of the platform over this period. The NDIN platform now connects over 100 public universities across India. During this period, I also managed the Design Innovation Centre at IISc, promoting design education, and mentoring early-stage product-based startups.

After my MPhil, I worked for the Boeing sponsored project at IISc with the Sustainable Manufacturing Group, developing a life cycle assessment software for globally distributed manufacturing networks.

During my 12 year career at IISc, I co-founded the EntIISc (read like entice), contributed to several building projects including the I-Hub for the Society for Innovation Development, IISc Bangalore.

My current research interests are in remote design collaboration & education, artificial intelligence in design & design process, design for social impacts, sustainable and regenerative design & manufacturing.

My areas of expertise in practice include design of digital products, design for government & innovation networks, and design for STEM education.