RCATech People

Dr. Tulio Maximo is an innovative designer and ergonomist with expertise in people-centered design. His professional aim is to bridge people, institutions, and knowledge to improve society collaboratively and forge the creative leaders of tomorrow. His research interests are empathy, intergenerational and inclusive design, social entrepreneurship, creative leadership, and co-designing healthcare and assistive technology services.

Dr Maximo is the recipient of the prestigious UGC Teaching Award as an Early Career faculty member for promoting empathy as a core teaching strategy. With the award, Dr Maximo is building a library of empathy tools to help students, tutors, and researchers empathize with people with reduced capabilities. He created the elective Design Meets Disabilities and also teaches Ergonomics, Design Research, Cooperative Projects, and Capstone Projects. He is also involved in the postgraduate program, has taught in the master capstones, and supervises PhD students. 

His research work has had a large impact on society and has received numerous recognitions and funds. His research-through-design furniture for children living in subdivided units has won four design awards, including the Red Dot Product Design Award and Design for Asia. The furniture was mass-manufactured and donated to more than 2000 children in Hong Kong.  

His research work has received funding from UGC, CNPq, JCDISI, and PolyU, and his design work has been awarded from institutions such as IDSA, Red Dot, DFA, Banco do Brasil, FINEP, and the Royal College of Arts. 

Dr. Maximo is an exchange officer for his program and contributes to internationalization and student exchange. Before Joining PolyU School of Design, Dr Maximo worked an associate lecturer in Sketching, Service Design, and Ergonomics at Loughborough University, product designer at Instituto Noisinho da Silva, and car designer at COMAU do Brasil (FIAT group).

• Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design-Product Project, Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais
• Master of Science in Human Factors for Inclusive Design, Loughborough University
• Doctor of Philosophy, Loughborough University