Carrie McKnelly

Carrie McKnelly
Part of the MIT Fall 2026 Architecture Lecture Series. 
Presented with the Design and Computation Group

Carrie McKnelly is a design leader whose work sits at the intersection of computational design and material craft. She leads the design team within Nike Innovation's Advanced Digital Creation Studio, spanning footwear, apparel, and accessories, directing digital workflows that embed performance, behavior, and data into how product is imagined, designed, and made.

Carrie holds a Master of Science in Architectural Studies from MIT, studied through the Computation and Design Group, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute. She has taught studio and elective courses at MIT and Pratt, and served as the Howard E. LeFevre Emerging Practitioner Fellow at Ohio State's Knowlton School of Architecture (2015–2016).

Carrie began her career at SOFTlab in New York, designing large-scale installations that revealed the creative potential of pairing computational logic with physical material. At MIT, she explored knit textiles as a material system for complex form and worked alongside the Self-Assembly Lab. She then joined Nike, leading computational design across products including DriFit Advanced for the 2024 Paris Olympics and Athlete Imagined Revolutions, thirteen concepts co-created with athletes and generative AI.

In her current role, she shapes the future of product design through emerging technologies, energized by where computational design and material craft will evolve next.

This lecture will be held in person in the Sidara Auditorium (W41- 1216) and streamed online on YouTube.

Lectures are free and open to the public. Registration is required.