Karin B. Schmidlin

I am a design educator, education scholar, and UX designer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. I have been teaching for nearly two decades across universities, art and design schools, and professional programs, working at the intersection of design, technology, and education. My teaching career began in 2007 at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), where I walked into my first classroom underprepared, uncertain, and very quickly aware of what teaching actually entails. The students were generous, the learning curve was steep, and somewhere between the first awkward lecture and the courses I teach today, I found the work that would come to define my career: helping people learn to think critically, design responsibly, and navigate complexity with confidence.

Hello & please don't call me professor.

I am a passionate instructor, PhD candidate, and UX designer currently living in Vancouver, British Columbia. My teaching career began in 2007 when I received my first teaching assignment at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). I was woefully unprepared and had no clear sense of what this new job entailed. But the students were kind, and lucky for me, I had just stumbled across my passion.

TEDxUW Fall 2017

Teaching for the 21st century

I was in equal measures delighted and terrified to give a TEDx talk on the overall theme of 'Interconnectedness'.

That early experience shaped how I approach teaching to this day. Over time, my work evolved from teaching tools and techniques to designing learning environments that help students grapple with real-world complexity, where there are no clear solutions and a plethora of unintended consequences. This focus now anchors my doctoral research at the University of British Columbia, where I study how simulation-based design education can make student agency visible and actionable through systems thinking, collaboration, and reflective practice. Across my teaching, research, and design work, I am driven by a guiding question: how do we design learning experiences that prepare people not just to solve problems but to live within uncertainty, make responsible choices, and participate meaningfully in shaping the world around them?

room 5LRUg3IwNpI unsplash

That early experience shaped how I approach teaching to this day. Over time, my work evolved from teaching tools and techniques to designing learning environments that help students grapple with real-world complexity, where there are no clear solutions and a plethora of unintended consequences. This focus now anchors my doctoral research at the University of British Columbia, where I study how simulation-based design education can make student agency visible and actionable through systems thinking, collaboration, and reflective practice.

Across my teaching, research, and design work, I am driven by a guiding question: how do we design learning experiences that prepare people not just to solve problems but to live within uncertainty, make responsible choices, and participate meaningfully in shaping the world around them?

Teaching & Design

From 2012 to 2021, I developed and taught courses in product development, social innovation, and user experience (UX) design at the University of Waterloo's Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business and a course on customer experience design at the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business, a course that I continue to teach. In 2017, the University of Waterloo awarded me with a Teaching Excellence Award for my work in the classroom. Since moving back to Vancouver in the summer of 2021, I joined Emily Carr University of Design + Art and the University of British Columbia's School of Information to continue teaching project-based design courses.

In 2018, I co-founded Carbonlabs, a design strategy firm, with my friend and business partner Nada Basir.Currently, I'm pursuing my PhD at the University of British Columbia in the Faculty of Education. I'm interested in holistic student assessment in online, project-based design courses. Yup, pretty much the kinds of courses that I teach.

I expressed my thoughts on teaching in my Teaching Philosophy and in my 2017 TEDx talk, "Teaching for the 21st Century" (you can watch the talk below).

Decorating my office with students

Some years ago, the University of Waterloo ran a photo competition asking faculty members to share photos of our offices to see who had the best decorations. Here is my submission. Best decorations ever -  the GBDA class of 2018.

Starterhacks

University of Waterloo

Starterhacks is a student-led hackathon for designers and developers. I was happy to run a workshop on how best to come up with a worthy idea (ideation) and prototyping techniques.

March Open House

University of Waterloo, Faculty of Arts

From 2012 until I left Waterloo, I facilitated a UX design mock lecture at the annual March Open House. It was always so rewarding to see incoming (and potential) students and meet their parents. To only see them again four years later at graduation.

Story Camp

University of Waterloo, School of Interaction Design and Business

Our campus in Stratford organized a design hackathon based on storytelling. I was happy to do a short session on how stories shape design.

Mentor

Ginny Dybenko

Some of us get lucky finding a mentor. Ginny has been the reason I wanted to teach at the University of Waterloo and has been a good friend ever since I joined her team.

Unique

FLAVOURS

I'm a text box. Double click me to edit the text or to change the way I look. You can change the font, size, color, and so much more.

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