Ricardo Gomes
Prof. GOMES has been a faculty member in the School of Design at San Francisco State University for 35+ years. He was the Department Chair from 2002 to 2012.
Before joining the School of Design faculty in the Fall of 1991, Prof. Gomes was a Senior Product Designer for Price-Pfister/Black & Decker home improvement products from 1988 to 1991. As Senior Designer in Research and Development, his responsibilities included product design development and coordination, from concept development to prototypes and first articles. During this period, he successfully filed ten (10) design patents.
Prof. Gomes coordinated the Design Center for Global Needs, which has transitioned to the Shapira Design Archive Project in the School of Design. This non-profit international research and development center promotes responsive design thinking methods and solutions to local, regional, and global issues, including inclusive/universal design; aging and design across the lifespan; health care delivery; community development; social innovation; and the sustainability of the built environment.
Prof. Gomes received the 2020 Faculty Award for Excellence in Service Learning from the Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, SFSU, and the IDSA 2020 Education Award, recognizing significant, distinguished, long-term faculty contributions to industrial design academia. He was selected as a 2022 iF Design Award Juror and as a 2025 and 2026 iF Student Design Award Juror. The iF DESIGN AWARD is among the world’s most prestigious design awards. Organized in Germany since 1953.
Prof. Gomes is on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Human-Centered Design in Boston. He is also a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America and a Trustee of the Beta Beta Chapter, Epsilon Pi Tau International Honor Society for Technology in the School of Design, SFSU.
Prof. Gomes was a Fulbright Research Scholar at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, from 1984 to 1986. From 1982 to 1987, he conducted postgraduate research and developed a container system for mobile healthcare delivery in East Africa. In 1986, he was Program Coordinator of Design Projects in Developing Countries at Les Ateliers, Ecole nationale supérieure de création industrielle (ENSCI) in Paris, France, where he directed student liaison projects with European international development agencies.
Prof. Gomes has conducted keynote speeches, presentations, symposiums, and workshops at universities and international conferences throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. In addition, he has served on juries related to Inclusive Design, Universal Design, Design for Social Responsibility, sustainability, and Equity for BIPOC in the Built Environment.
Prof. Gomes has an MFA in Industrial Design for Low-Income Economies from the University of California, Los Angeles (Design of a Container System for Mobile Health Care Delivery in East Africa); M.A. in Architectural Building Technology from the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at UCLA (Analysis of Alternative Building Materials and Construction Systems for Smallscale Industries in the Cape Verde Islands, West Africa); BFA in Industrial Design from Massachusetts College of Art (Design of an Adaptive Structural Learning Environment for Disabled and Developmentally Challenged Children).