Architect and PhD in Design, Marinella Ferrara has been active in academia since 1992. She is Associate Professor of Industrial Design at the Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano. She currently teaches Product Design and History of Design and Technology at the School of Design, where she also organize design workshops in collaboration with industry partners and leads innovative teaching initiatives under the Passion in Action program. She is also a faculty member of the PhD in Design. Since 2015, she has been the Head of MADEC – the Material Design Culture Research Group, where her research investigates the strategic role of materials in design-driven innovation, both historically and in contemporary contexts. Her current focus lies on new materials and materialities —particularly related to smart and adaptive materials, bio-based e waste-based materials—in relation to the twin transition (digital and ecological) and emerging approaches to design education, craftsmanship, and manufacturing. Her key publications include: Materials and Innovation in Design (Gangemi, 2004); Materials that Change Colour (Springer, 2014); Ideas and the Matter (ListLab, 2017); Materials that Move: Smart Materials, Intelligent Design (Springer, 2018).

Since 2011, she has served as Editor-in-Chief of PAD – Pages on Arts & Design (padjournal.net), a peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal. She is also a member of the ADI Permanent Design Observatory, for Materials and Technical Systems evalutation. Prof. Ferrara actively contributes to research evaluation panels, collaborating with national and international agencies such as ANR (France), NWO (Netherlands) and FCT (Portugal).

Selected awards and recognitions: Top Innovation Award (2019) by the China Industrial Design Association (CIDA), named among the Top 10 Educators for Industrial Design; Honourable Mention ADI Design Index 2019 for the book Materials that Move; Honourable Mention ADI Design Index 2021 for editing SocialDesign. Design and the Common Good, # 12–13 (vol. 7, 2020) AIS/Design. History and Research.

Since 2023, she has served as the Scientific Director of Capacity Building Projects for the Royal College of Traditional Arts in Saudi Arabia (TRITA ), contributing to co-designing and developing of Higher Diploma and Master Degree programs for WRTH and related initiatives under the MOU between TRITA and Politecnico di Milano.