Peter Pfanner is an industrial designer, interaction designer, experience designer, innovator, and educator. Currently, Peter serves as the Executive Director of the UIC Innovation Center, a collaborative education and development center that operates at the nexus of research, education, and industry. Through targeted programs and initiatives, the Innovation Center brings together students and faculty across a wide spectrum of backgrounds and experience to work on internal and external projects, driving multidisciplinary innovation, and inspiring new innovators.
Over the past three decades, Peter has served as design and creative director of numerous projects around the world. His experience spans mobile communications, consumer electronics, medical, office products, furniture, architecture, and materials science at consultancies, corporations, and universities.
Peter’s work has been featured in the Art Institute of Chicago “Musecast,” the Art Institute of Chicago A+D series “Young Chicago,” Business Week, Forbes.com, Brand Week, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum’s “Design Culture Now,” and ID Magazine, among others.
The recipient of IDSA/IDEA/Business Week, IF Design Hanover, Red Dot, Cooper Hewitt Museum, Good Design, Chicago, ID Magazine, and GE Plastics Design awards, he has exhibited work at the Art Institute of Chicago, MOMA New York, Cooper Hewitt Museum, and Chicago Athenaeum.
Peter holds 17 design and utility patents and is a 1st Dan Black Belt in Taekwon-Do.