Tomás Dorta has a background as a practicing architect and designer. His research interests include new technologies in the design process and co-design and the development of new techniques and devices for designing in the virtual realm. He obtained his Ph.D. (2001), studying virtual reality and its impact as a visualization tool on the design process. His research has been extensively funded by Canadian federal and provincial research grant organizations. It has been published and presented in several international scientific conferences as well as scientific journals. As a design educator, Tomás Dorta joined the School of Design of Université de Montréal in 2003, where he is a Full Professor since 2017. His teaching includes design research, bionics and co-design courses, as well as industrial design studios related to interaction design and design collaboration. Since 2021 Tomás Dorta has been an Affiliate (Full) Professor at the Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture of Pennsylvania State University. He was a member of the editorial board of the journal Design Studies (until July 2023), and he currently occupies the same type of position at the journal CoDesign. He founded the Design Research Laboratory Hybridlab in 2008, in which he is the director. In 2016, Tomás Dorta co-founded the Startup: Systèmes Hybridlab (hyve3d.com) and has been its president ever since.
The Department of Design has a long history of weaving design research and participatory design in undergraduate and graduate curricula. Research topics range from social innovation to sustainability through design, cultural and brand identity, data visualization all the way to the use and interaction of emerging creative technologies.
