Peter Pfanner is Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation and the executive director of the Innovation Center. In this role, he provides strategic vision, fosters corporate and academic partnerships, and ensures the successful integration of research, design, and real-world innovation.
The UIC Innovation Center is a collaborative education and development center that operates at the nexus of research, education, and industry. Through targeted programs and initiatives, the Innovation Center brings together students and faculty across a wide spectrum of backgrounds and experience to work on internal and external projects, driving multidisciplinary innovation and inspiring new innovators.
Over the past three decades, Peter has served as design and creative director of numerous projects around the world. His experience spans mobile communications, consumer electronics, medical, office products, furniture, architecture, and materials science at consultancies, corporations, and universities.
Peter’s work has been featured in the Art Institute of Chicago “Musecast,” the Art Institute of Chicago A+D series Young Chicago, Business Week, Forbes.com, Brandweek, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum’s Design Culture Now, and ID magazine, among other venues.
The recipient of IDSA/IDEA/Business Week, IF Design Hanover, Red Dot, Cooper Hewitt, Good Design, Chicago, i-D magazine, and GE Plastics Design awards, he has exhibited work at the Art Institute of Chicago, MoMA, Cooper Hewitt Museum, and Chicago Athenaeum.
Peter holds seventeen design and utility patents and is a first dan black belt in tae kwon do.
