ABOUT
French version here ︎︎︎
Educated as a philosopher and a clinical psychologist, Stéphane Vial is a design researcher specializing in responsible digital innovation in mental health.
Born in France, he studied in Lyon (B.A. and M.A. in philosophy) and Paris (B.A. and M.A. in clinical psychology), and earned his PhD in philosophy of digital technology at Paris Descartes University in 2012, then his Habilitation to direct research (H.D.R.) in design at the University of Nîmes in 2015.
He is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Design of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), and the Chairholder of the UQAM Research Chair in Design for e-Mental Health. He is also a researcher at the Centre de recherche de l’Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal (CR-IUSMM). He leads a transdisciplinary design research team that seeks to create, evaluate and implement digital mental health interventions with a high quality of user experience through the creative methods of user experience design and codesign.
He has published more than five books (MIT Press, Springer, Puf) on digital media and design, including Being and the Screen: How the Digital Changes Perception ; A Short Treatise on Design ; or Advancements in the Philosophy of Design.
As principal investigator, he currently leads a SSHRC-funded project on design strategies for e-mental health interventions and a FRQ funded project on the codesign of the Mentallys app that aims to improve the experience of accessing mental health care.
His work has been internationally recognized for its theoretical originality, its extensive transdisciplinarity and its ability to open up unexplored paths. In 2020, he was short-listed for the Prix d'excellence de la relève de l'Université du Québec. He is also the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the design journal Sciences du Design at the Presses universitaires de France.
He spent the first part of his career in France, where he was an Associate Professor in design at the University of Nîmes (2013-2018) and a professor of philosophy at the École Boulle in Paris (2005-2013). He also worked in Paris as a web designer (2007-2015) and as a clinical psychologist (2004-2007).
In a nutshell
2020 : Chairholder of the UQAM Research Chair in Design for e-Mental Health and researcher at CR-IUSMM (Montréal, Canada)
2019 : Associate Professor, School of design, Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada)
2015 : Habilitation to direct research (H.D.R.), Université de Nîmes (France)
2013 : Associate Professor of Design, Université de Nîmes (France)
2012 : Ph.D. in Philosophy, Université Paris 5 Descartes (France)
2009 : Founding Creative director at Lektum, web and graphic design studio (Paris, France)
2006 : Clinical Psychologist (part-time), Hôpital Tenon, AP-HP (Paris, France)
2005 : Master in Clinical Psychology, Université Paris 7 Diderot (France)
2005 : Professor of philosophy in applied arts & design, École Boulle (Paris, France)
2004 : Free-lance web designer (Paris, France)
1998 : Professor of philosophy (secondary school), Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale (France)
1997 : Master in Philosophy, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 (France)