Louise Valentine, Ph.D.

Professor Louise Valentine, Ph.D., holds the Margaret Clark Morgan Leadership Chair at Kent State University. Throughout her career, she has believed in the power of education to bring about change in the world. For Louise, that’s meant a lifelong commitment to the exploration of higher education's relationship with the arts. Her on-going curiosity has taken her on a research and teaching journey that’s blended fashion, design, innovation and creativity. That thirst for knowledge, and the desire to help others uncover it in themselves, is what drives Louise. 

A fascination with the broader context of design and creativity led Louise to a Doctoral Degree in Designer’s Thinking. Her post-doctoral research helped her develop a deep understanding of the importance of working in partnership. It also created a challenging question - how can the value of design be better understood and communicated? Louise believes the answer to this, and other key questions, will come from an international collective of design thinkers. Her published works include "Prototyping", "Design Thinking for Social Innovation in Healthcare" and Design Thinking for Textiles."

Louise brought together communities of thinkers and doers during her time at the University of Dundee and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. She led multiple research projects as part of the £81 million Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum of Design, which established Dundee as an international center for design. However, Louise was motivated to make the move from Scotland to Ohio in search of a more international outlook. 

Now, as a leader of a large, internationally recognized School of Fashion, Louise has the opportunity to bring more people together. She’s able to learn from her colleagues across the different international campuses of Kent State University. In KSU, Louise has also found an organization that shares her key values of care and kindness. 

Alongside her teaching and research responsibilities at KSU, Louise is a UKRI AHRC Advisory Board member and a member of the UKRI AHRC Peer Review College. She is the current President of the European Academy of Design, which encourages European-wide research collaboration, and Co-Editor of The Design Journal. 

Proudly international, Louise is committed to tackling some very big questions head on. What is the future of Higher Education for fashion in the 21st century? What does it mean to lead with inclusivity? And, if we dare to dream together - what do we see, and what can we ultimately achieve?

Education

• Ph.D, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK. (2003) 'The Activity of Rhetoric in the Process of a Designer's Thinking. 5 November 2003.
• Masters of Design, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK. (1997)
• B.A. (Hons) Industrial Design (Printed Textiles). Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. (1995)