The Ohio State University Department of Design and Executive Dean David Horn of the College of Arts and Sciences are pleased to announce that Fabienne Münch, PhD will join the department as its new chair on July 1, 2022. Fabienne will bring expansive experience and a strong collaborative vision to the department at a time of renewed investment in the Arts at Ohio State.

Professor Münch's professional experience spans across academic and corporate environments. She currently leads international research partnerships for the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, and a cultural diversity research project with seven universities to create a virtual university experiment for the European Union called Unite!

As the chair of the School of Design at the Université de Montréal, she supported the department's strategy to implement undergraduate and graduate curricula reforms, launched two new master’s degrees, fostered inter-disciplinary programs on campus, and forged new partnerships with design schools in Europe and South America for design students and faculty.

Originally from France, as co-principal of a small design studio in Paris, Münch developed a passion for applying a rigorous design-driven process to complex business problems and in support of culturally diverse teams’ performance. She moved to Michigan to work for Herman Miller Inc., where she held various leadership positions in Research, Design & Development over the course of fifteen years. Fabienne has a master’s degree in International Business Administration from ICN Business School in Nancy, a master’s degree in Social Sciences from HEC, Paris in partnership with Oxford University, UK and a PhD in Cross-Cultural Management from the Université Grenoble Alpes, France.

The department thanks the members of the search committee who began their careful and detailed work in early autumn, including faculty members Paul Nini, Sébastien Proulx, Kyong Swearingen, Rebekah Matheny, Elizabeth Sanders, and staff member Gabe Tippery, Design graduate student Camille Snyder, and the interim chair of Dance Susan Petry who served as the committee's chair.