Paul Hekkert [PhD] is full professor of form theory at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. There he chairs the section design aesthetics and supervises a research group carrying out innovative research on our sense perception and (emotional) experience of products. Much of this research is done in cooperation with industrial partners, such as Mitsubishi, Procter & Gamble, Philips, and TNS.

Paul has published on product experience and aesthetics in major international journals and is co-editor of 'Design and Emotion: The experience of everyday things' [2004] and 'Product Experience' [2008]. He is co-founder and chairman of the Design and Emotion Society  and has co-organized six consecutive international Design & Emotion conferences.

Together with a colleague/designer, he also developed an interaction-centred design approach, called Vision in Product design (ViP) that is widely applied in both education and industry. They presently work on a book in which this approach is laid down.

Paul serves as a member of the editorial boards of The Design Journal, International Journal of Design and Empirical Studies of the Arts.