Dr. Gayatri Menon is a principal faculty at the National Institute of Design, NID with nearly 25 years of experience in design education, research and practice. Currently, she heads the Design foundation program at NID. She did her two‐and‐a half‐ year postgraduate course in Product Design at NID after completing her graduation in engineering and a short stint in the industry. She conducts courses in the areas of Design methods, Design thinking, Systems thinking and approach, Creativity, Play and learning, Research methods, Traditional narratives, Design for social concerns, Design for special needs etc. and guides students on design projects.

As a design faculty at NID, she has worked as a project head and designer/consultant for several industries, public sector design, institution building, craft heritage and socially relevant projects such as UNIDO project for development of SSI,GI project for craft sector, setting up Jharkhand institute of craft and design (JICD), Think design space for TCS etc. She has also conducted many training workshops in the areas of design thinking, creativity and innovation for industry professionals/ organizations such as TCS, Wipro, Maruti, ITC, Godrej, HUL, Asian paints, Accenture, CEB etc. She has been a board member of ITRA, International toy research association, part of the expert committee for NCF and NEP2020 at NCERT, National council of education, research and training and is currently a senate member at IIT-Jammu and IIT-Gandhinagar

She likes to constantly explore the boundaries of Design thinking and Creative methods and has carried out extensive research study in this area. She has presented papers and conducted workshops both at a national and international levels. Her PhD thesis from Indian Institute of Technology, IIT‐Bombay on “A conceptual framework for opportunity identification in design innovation” was given an award of excellence. She has been invited as a tutor to International Creativity Workshops held in Italy, UK, Germany etc. and as a visiting faculty at institutions in India at various IIMs, IITs, EDI, NTPC school of management etc. and at design schools in South Africa and Canada.