Abir Mullick

Director, Industrial Design Program, Georgia Tech

Professor Abir Mullick is the Director of the Industrial Design Program in the College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). He has served in higher education for the past fifteen years, teaching courses in industrial design and in architecture. Previously at the State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo he was associate professor of architecture and project director at the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access. Prior to his experience at SUNY, Professor Mullick was assistant professor of industrial design at Purdue University.

A strong proponent of universal design, Professor Mullick is nationally known for his work in the field of universal design. He is one of the authors of the seven principles of universal design. The authors, a working group of architects, product designers, engineers and environmental design researchers, collaborated to establish seven universal design principles to guide a wide range of design disciplines about the criteria for universal design. He and his colleagues from SUNY-Buffalo are two-time recipients of the Universal Design Education Project grant and they have successfully developed and introduced courses in universal design education. His student work and designs have received many awards and they have been published in national and academic publications, including in the Wall Street Journal.

Professor Mullick has international involvement in universal design and he serves as a resource person for the United Nations. He has advised many governmental and non-governmental organizations on access policy and universal design in the built environment. Participated in many international events, he has delivered the defining lecture in the Universal Design Seminar in Beirut, Lebanon and was a keynote speaker at the World Congress on Environmental Design for the New Millennium, Seoul, Korea. He has also addressed the World Congress of Rehabilitation International in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

An active researcher, Professor Mullick has directed many sponsored projects and developed designs that highlight universal access in products, as well as in environments. He is well known for his work in the area of the bathroom and he has recently completed a project called The Universal Bathroom, funded by the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of Education. The designs from this project have won the IDSA award and American Society of Aging award, and they have been patented and commercialized.

Currently, Professor Mullick is directing a three-year sponsored project called Inclusive Indoor Play, funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of Education. This project which will study play behavior and play needs of children with and without disabilities, will develop new designs of play environments and construct working prototypes that will be placed in actual play environments and tested with children. He also serves as the universal design expert for another project called Universal Design Play, funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of Education. This project, which focuses on universal design as it applies to toys for children, is expected to produce an assessment tool that will allow parents to select, designers to design and purchasers to buy universal design toys.

Professor Mullick has published extensively in design, architecture, planning, rehabilitation and human factors journals. He has co-edited a special issue of Innovation, the official journal of the Industrial Designers Society of America. He has published two chapters, one on bathroom and another on kitchen design, in the Universal Design Handbook, published by the McGraw-Hill Publication.

Affiliated with many professional organizations, Professor Mullick is a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America. He received his Bachelor of Industrial Design degree from the National Institute of Design in India and earned his graduate degrees in industrial design, as well as in city and regional planning, both from The Ohio State University.