Jules Sherman, MFA

I began my career as an industrial designer creating consumer products, where I spent more than a decade practicing how form, materials, and manufacturing processes shape everyday objects like architectural hardware and kitchen housewares. That foundation eventually led me into healthcare, where I design medical devices and care technologies in close collaboration with patients, families, clinicians, and engineers—particularly in pediatric, neonatal, and maternal care. Over the past dozen years, I’ve worked within research labs and innovation programs at academic children’s hospitals, including Stanford Medicine and Children’s National Hospital. My research and medical device work at these institutions have led to several published articles and issued patents.

Along the way, I became an entrepreneur, inventing and bringing to market a lactation support medical device that was later acquired by Lansinoh. That experience continues to shape how I approach research and design, in terms of the realities of regulation, manufacturing, and adoption. My work has been supported by competitive U.S. government funding, including grants from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and was recognized with the 2025 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Product Design.

As an educator, I teach design and healthcare innovation by engaging students with real-world challenges to inspire human-centered and equitable solutions. I co-taught at Stanford’s d.school alongside clinical faculty for several years and currently serve as an Adjunct Professor in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland.

I hold a BFA in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Design from Stanford University. I’m currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Human–Computer Interaction at the University of California, Irvine, expanding my practice into digital healthcare products that complement physical systems.