Biography

Katie graduated in Law from the University of Dundee, then completed a Masters in Leadership and Innovation where she discovered her love for service design. Katie joined at the launch of the Service Design Academy, contributing to the co-creation of the learning content for the Professional Development Award in Service Design, and subsequently in the development and growth of the Academy. Katie was the first to achieve the Service Design Network Accredited Master Trainer in Scotland, and has extensive experience facilitating major service design programmes with clients from a wide variety of sectors. She attended the Future of Service Design event in Cologne with the world’s top 100 service designers. Katie was thrilled to receive the Business Women Scotland’s Rising Star Award in 2020. She is a tireless volunteer for service design professional groups including the SDN Accreditation Committee and is a cofounder of Service Design in Education and EduJam.

Biography

Sonia is currently a Graphic Design Manager and Product Owner at the University of Edinburgh. She has a background in Visual Communication, having completed a Degree and Masters in Design at Edinburgh College of Art. Her education instilled a curiosity to question, explore, learn, and create innovative ideas and solutions to problems. Throughout her professional career, she has worked on a broad range of projects spanning brand, advertising, communications, marketing, digital, UX and UI design. 

Sonia’s passion lies in integrating human-centred practices, such as Service Design, into her work. Studying at the Service Design Academy in Dundee, she gained a deeper understanding of key principles and methods that are needed when approaching design challenges from a people/user centric approach. The Service Design course also provided Sonia with valuable opportunities to share her knowledge, skills and expertise of Human Centred Design with others, through her participation in different initiatives such as Service Design Network UK Chapter, UCISA UX community of Practice, and mentoring for EduJam.

Recently she has started to investigate how life centric approaches which involve how people and planet can be woven into the design process. She is concerned about the negative impacts of taking a transactional/extraction stance and is looking into how more regenerative, redistributive methods can create a fairer, greener world.