prof.dr.ir. M.C. van der Voort (Mascha)

Mascha van der Voort (1974) is Vice-Dean Education at the Faculty of Engineering Technology of the University of Twente. Moreover, she is a full professor in Human Centred Design and scientific co-director of the DesignLab of the University of Twente. She is board member of Design United, the 4TU Research Centre for Design. 

Mascha’s passion and ambition is to address the challenges we face as society in impactful and meaningful ways by working across the borders of disciplines and actively and equally involving the diversity of stakeholders. This is reflected in her research profile, the educational initiatives she started as well as in her own ways of working. Mascha is convinced that true innovation can only arise from a transdisciplinary approach and co-creation. With a background in both civil engineering and human-centred product design, Mascha works across disciplines ranging from automotive, policy making, smart city design to healthcare.

Her research focuses on the development of design approaches that enable diverse stakeholders to actively engage and participate in collaboratively exploring and defining potential futures. Overall aim is to elicit actual stakeholder needs, create commitment and understanding, and design products, services & systems that meet these needs and expectations. Acknowledgement of the use and context related expertise each stakeholder has is key herein. The approaches she develops are transdisciplinary, participatory and scenario-based. They facilitate and enable active stakeholder participation regardless of discipline, experience or role as well as contextualise the design challenge.

Concurrently, Mascha teaches subjects related to human-centred and scenario-based design. She was one of the founders of the Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) educational programs at the University of Twente in 2001. In 2014 she co-established the DesignLab, of which she is currently scientific co-director. Moreover, she is founder the cross-faculty educational programme, the Transdisciplinary Master-insert programme 'Shaping Responsible Futures', which won the Dutch Higher Education Award 2022.

Expertises

• Computer Science

  • Design
  • User
  • Automation
  • Control
  • Models
  • Product Design
  • Stakeholders
  • Roles

Organisaties

Onderzoeksprofielen

Founder Transdisciplinary Master-insert 'Shaping Responsible Futures'

Verbonden aan opleidingen

Vakken collegejaar 2025/2026

Vakken in het huidig collegejaar worden toegevoegd op het moment dat zij definitief zijn in het Osiris systeem. Daarom kan het zijn dat de lijst nog niet compleet is voor het gehele collegejaar.

Vakken collegejaar 2024/2025

Organisaties