Professor Alison McKay

Profile

Alison joined the School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds in 1984 as a research engineer. She was appointed to a lectureship in the summer of 1994, gained her PhD in 1996, became Professor of Design Systems in 2007, retired in July 2026 and was appointed emerita professor from August 2026. She is a member of the School of Mechanical Engineering’s Institute of Design, Robotics and Manufacturing.

Research interests

Alison has had a career-long interest in developing new ideas integrating engineering, human and societal needs with product and organisational design. As a result, she has benefited from the wide range of academic disciplines at Leeds in the development of both research and educational activities. Early collaborations with colleagues in Computing and Philosophy laid foundations for research in the description of physical products. This expanded to collaborations with colleagues in the Business School where she was a founding member of the Leeds Socio-Technical Centre and its director (2014-2019). In education, she led the multi-disciplinary team (covering mechanical, electrical, chemical and civil engineering, psychology, visual arts-based design and business) that developed and launched (in 2003) the University’s undergraduate programme in Product Design.

Her research centres on socio-technical aspects of engineering design systems including: the networks of organisations that both develop and deliver products to market and support them through-life; the design descriptions that underpin these networks (http://configuration-spaces.leeds.ac.uk/); and the establishment of computer aided design systems to support early design activities (when new shapes are being defined), so enhancing designers’ creativity and innovation. She is currently developing a personal research interest in underlying principles for the description of services with a focus on cases that contribute to environmental and societal sustainability.

Primary investigator (PI)

• Assuring the quality of design descriptions through the use of design configuration spaces

Qualifications

• BEng (Hons)
• PhD
• PG Certificate in Learning & Teaching in Higher Education
• PG Diploma in Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the IMechE
• Member of the Design Society

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Integrated Energy Research
• Institute of Design, Robotics and Manufacturing
• Design sciences