Katja Hölttä-Otto is Professor of Engineering Design, Mechanical Engineering, at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Prior to that she served as an Associate Professor of product development at the Design Factory at Aalto University, Finland, an Associate Professor in Engineering Product Development at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and earlier at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She received her M.Sc. (2000) and Ph.D. (2005) in Mechanical Engineering from Helsinki University of Technology. She worked as a visiting scholar at Center for Innovation in Product Development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Hölttä-Otto teaches project-based design courses as well as courses on design theory and methodology. Her research areas of specialization include user centered design including empathy, creativity and need finding in engineering design, as well as design for circular economy, modular product platform development and interdisciplinary engineering education. She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award and multiple best paper awards. She is an ASME fellow.