DrLeila Sheldrick

Dr Leila Sheldrick is a designer, engineer, and researcher working at the intersection of innovation, sustainability, and futures thinking. She leads the Strategic Futures Design Lab at Imperial College London, where she develops pioneering work that harnesses emerging technologies and practices to shape sustainable and equitable futures through design.

- Research
Leila’s research and practice span design processes, strategic foresight, and sustainable systems - exploring how designers and engineers can work in, for, and with the future. She has led interdisciplinary projects on the circular economy, decision-making in design, and the creation of tools that support reflection, communication, and long-term thinking in innovation teams. Her approach is design-led but systems-aware, combining critical inquiry with practical frameworks to support meaningful change in real-world contexts. 

- Industry
Alongside her academic work, Leila is an experienced consultant and strategic advisor. She has collaborated with organisations including Atkins, SSEN, Triumph Motorcycles, Rio Tinto, COMAC, and Advantage Austria on challenges ranging from sustainable product development and scenario planning to equitable energy transitions and systems innovation. Her practice is rooted in deep collaboration - whether co-designing with emerging startups or working with global firms to explore transformation at scale. She is committed to building bridges between research, industry, and education to enable more responsible, creative, and future-literate design practice.

- Education
As a founding academic of the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial, Leila has helped shape the growth of the school and its programmes - developing eleven new taught modules and co-leading the creation of two MSc degrees. From 2018 to 2024, she served as Director of Global Innovation Design (GID), a pioneering postgraduate course delivered in partnership with the Royal College of Art, Keio University, The Pratt Institute, Tsinghua University and Nanyang Technological University. Through this, she supported the graduation of over 150 global design leaders. Her students have gone on to win major innovation awards, launch impactful startups, and shape the future of design across sectors. Leila has also supervised cross-disciplinary PhD projects that span sustainable manufacturing, digital customisation, intergenerational futures, and design for wellbeing.

- Opportunities for Collaboration

There are many ways to collaborate through research projects, consultancy work, or PhD and project supervision. More details are available here.