Dr Folasayo Olalere

Professional biography

Folasayo Olalere is a Lecturer in Design at the Open University. He is an interdisciplinary researcher, designer and educator, and he holds a PhD in Product Design from UMK Malaysia, where he employed design to promote and sustain Indigenous Knowledge. Prior to joining the OU, he was a Senior Lecturer at the Durban University of Technology (DUT), South Africa (2019-2023); a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Zululand (2019) and Vaal University of Technology, South Africa (2016-2018); and a lecturer and researcher at the Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (2012-2016).

He received several academic/research awards such as the Y-Rated Researcher award (2021-2026) by the National Research Foundation South Africa; the Faculty Researcher of the Year 2021 and 2022 at DUT, Malaysian International Scholarship for his PhD studies- awarded by the Malaysian Government, Excellent Postgraduate Researcher’s Award 2016 by UMK Malaysia; and Emerging Scholar Award 2018- awarded by the Common Ground Research Network, USA.

.As a designer, he has four registered patents (industrial design) for his product designs and inventions. He also participated in several international design exhibitions and competitions and won innovation awards such as Gold Medalist at the International Invention, Innovation & Technology Exhibition (ITEX’15) Malaysia; Gold Medalist at UMK Annual Research and Innovation Exhibition Malaysia; SA National Champion and International Champion at the 2017 Konica Minolta International Contest in Berlin, Germany, and Bronze Medalist at the International Conference and Exposition on Inventions Malaysia.

Research interests

Folasayo's research interests include design for experience/well-being, culture and social change. Within these research interests, he has applied various design approaches/tools/technologies such as co-design/co-creation, social innovation, gamification, additive manufacturing, Internet of Things, etc. He has over 50 research publications, including journal articles, book/book chapters, and conference papers. He recently co-edited a book that provides insight into the role of the camera during crises in Africa. His recent research project, which is registered under the OU Open Societal Challenge, employs gamification as a tool to raise awareness about gender-based violence (GBV). The initial phase of the project (preliminary research and game development) was funded by the South Africa National Research Foundation under the Competitive Grant for Y-Rated Researcher.

 Through Folasayo's active research engagements, he has secured several competitive research grants, supervised two PhDs and four MPhils to successful completion, and currently supervising three PhD students. He has examined ten MPhil dissertations and one PhD thesis abroad. He is open to PhD supervision and welcomes applications within his research interests or other related areas.

Teaching interests

Folasayo has taught a wide range of design modules such as Design theory (2nd year); History of graphic design (2nd & 3rd year); Aesthetic appreciation (3rd year); Design issues (2nd year); visual presentation techniques (2nd year); basic product design (1st year); and product design and techniques (2nd & 3rd year) - which I also developed.

Besides teaching, he executed two scholarship projects that looked into the internationalisation and decolonisation of design curricula. One of the project activities is a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) with two partner universities in the USA and Mexico. He also published a book chapter on decolonising design curriculum, where he interrogated various scholarly and theoretical views and proposed a framework for implementing a decolonised approach in design education.

Folasayo is currently working with the design group to develop a new design qualification (Q63), and he is actively engaged with the second-level production team to develop two modules (T240 and T290). He is a member of the module presentation team for T217 (Design Essentials), and serves as the shadow chair.