About Yihyun’s experiences
Yihyun Lim is an Assistant Professor of Practice at USC Iovine and Young Academy. Her research interests lies in creating value-driven experiences with various forms of interactions, from adaptive materials to ambient intelligences. Yihyun brings together behavioral research and human-centered design methods to situate emerging networked technologies in the current and future societies.
leading a multidisciplinary
research group
@MIT Design Lab, Director
Yihyun served as the director of MIT Design Lab, where she led a multidisciplinary group of researchers, engineers, and designers to drive design innovation across various industry sectors from consumer products to sportswear and banking. Prior to serving the director role, she was the associate director and research associate at the lab, leading research projects with global companies for number of years.
promoting design discourse
@DeSForM19, Conference Co-Chair
Yihyun has co-chaired the eleventh edition of DeSForM Conference, Design and Semantics of Form and Movement. Titled ‘Beyond Intelligence’, the conference explored implications and challenges of emerging technologies and complex intelligence systems in the practice of design.
showcasing innovation
@international design exhibitions and festivals
Her collaborative design research work has been exhibited at Milan Design Week 2018-2019 (Puma Biodesign), Ars Electronica (Art of Time Killing), and Design Museum London (forthcoming).
@MIT, emLyon Business School: teaching
Yihyun is a lecturer in interaction design at MIT CMS/W. She has also co-taught MIT Professional Workshop course, ‘Innovation Beyond the Buzzword’ from 2016-2019. She also teaches at emLyon Business School in Paris as Visiting Professor, a course called ‘Principles of User Experience Design’ for incoming class of Masters in Data Science and Marketing students.
Yihyun also frequently serves as guest critics in design and architecture studios, at MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Northeastern University, and University of Oregon, to name a few. She is frequently invited to speak at international sponsored events and conferences and leads innovation workshops for global corporate companies and academic institutions throughout the world.
@Innovation by Design: design consulting
She is a partner at Innovation by Design, a consultancy based in Boston and Milan, that focuses on strategic design, value research and experience prototyping. She continues to serve as an active member of IXD, working on consulting projects with global companies.
@ D.Fluence: collaborative design research practice
In 2020, Yihyun started her own design research practice, D.Fluence with her colleague Bumjin Kim. They have known each other since graduate school at MIT and have been collaborating on design research and architectural projects.
#An architect by training,
Yihyun practiced architecture and lighting design in San Francisco, Seoul, and New York prior to joining MIT for graduate studies and has years of experience in the design technology field. She earned the MArch degree from MIT in architecture and urban design, and a BA in architecture/city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley.
She enjoys culinary trips and recreating experiences at home as an aspiring cook.
During her free time, she enjoys working with fibers to create felted objects. She shares her felted products through her brand, Delica (delicamade.com)
