Cheryl Heller

Senior Fellow in Social Innovation

Cheryl Heller, PhD, is a designer, writer, educator, and entrepreneur, and President of the MeasureD Lab. She pioneered the field of social design, which is the application of a collaborative creative process to solving complex human challenges. She advises business, social, and philanthropic leaders around the world on identifying and acting on opportunities, and has extensive experience facilitating engagement to fulfill mission-critical strategic objectives and culture change. She founded the first STEM Master’s program in social design at the School of Visual Arts, whose graduates are working as creative leaders in government, industry, healthcare, technology, and global NGOs. She is currently on the faculty of Babson College and the CENTRO design school in Mexico City. She was Director of Design Integration and Professor of Practice in Innovation Design at Arizona State University, where she built the first transdisciplinary STEM Master’s program in Innovation and Venture Development.

Heller is a recipient of the AIGA Lifetime Medal for her contribution to design and a Rockefeller Bellagio Fellow. Her book, The Intergalactic Design Guide: Harnessing the Universal Creative Potential of Social Design, is a manual for anyone wanting to use design to create a resilient future.

Heller has worked with the Ford Motor Company, American Express, Reebok, Mariott International, MeadWestvaco, StoraEnso, Medtronic, Mars Corporation, Discovery Networks International, Herman Miller, Bayer Corporation, Seventh Generation, L’Oreal, Hearst Publishing, The World Wildlife Fund, Ford Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and the Girl Scouts of America. She is the former Board Chair of PopTech and Designer in Residence at the Babson Social Innovation Lab. She created the Ideas that Matter program for Sappi, which has given over $16 million to designers working for the public good, and partnered with Paul Polak and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum to create the exhibit, “Design for the Other 90%.”

Heller created the Ideas that Matter program for Sappi, which has given over $16 million to designers working for the public good. She partnered with Paul Polak and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum to create the exhibit, “Design for the Other 90%.”