Credentials

PhD (University of Cambridge); MPhil (University of Cambridge); MEng (University of Cambridge); MA (Hons) (University of Cambridge)

Biography

Dr Simon Ford's mission is to create memorable learning experiences for students. Teaching within the innovation and entrepreneurship concentration, his courses are highly experiential and project-based, and involve students developing solutions to real-world problems. He brings the business world into the classroom and his consulting-oriented courses have involved the participation of Affinity, Deloitte, EA, EY Advisory, KPMG, Pearson, Slalom, and Smash + Tess, as well as tech-based ventures including Advisor Flow, Flash Forest, Nourish Labs, Sarcomere Dynamics, Silver Homes, Spexi Geospatial, Visier and Voltsafe. He has also developed three serious games for teaching innovation and teamwork: Delivery Drones; Lights, Camera, Action!; and GLAM 2049.

Outside the classroom, Dr Ford is the current Faculty Advisor to Axis Consulting, and recently published a paper documenting how Axis provides experiential learning opportunities to its members. He was the Academic Director for the CaseIT International MIS Case Competition from 2018-2023 and co-authored cases on 1QBit, APOLLO, Arc'teryx, BC Cancer, EA, Mojio, Spexi Geospatial, Visier and YVR for the competition. He also served as the Faculty Advisor to the SFU JDC West team that won School of the Year in 2019, and has been active in supporting several other student organizations at SFU including BASS, Enactus SFU, and SFU Aerospace,

Dr Ford has been recognized for his teaching, student engagement and service. He was the 2019 recipient of the TD Canada Trust Distinguished Teaching Award for excellence in teaching. For his contributions to the student community, Simon was awarded the BASS Faculty Impact Award in 2019 and 2024, and the Beedie Service Award in 2023.

Beyond teaching, Dr Ford is an active researcher. Much of his recent research focuses on the impact of 3D printing on society. His papers on this topic include:

• Invited review article: Where and how 3D printing is used in teaching and education, Additive Manufacturing, 25: 131-150 (January 2019)
• Unlocking value for a circular economy through 3D printing: A research agenda, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 115: 75-84 (February 2017)
• Additive manufacturing and sustainability: an exploratory study of the advantages and challenges, Journal of Cleaner Production, 137: 1573-1587 (November 2016)
• Distributed manufacturing: scope, challenges and opportunities, International Journal of Production Research, 54(23): 6917-6935 (June 2016)
• The Emergence of Additive Manufacturing: Introduction to the Special Issue, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 102: 156-159 (January 2016)
• Economic implications of additive manufacturing and the contribution of MIS, Business and Information Systems Engineering, 57(2): 139-148 (March 2015)

Before joining SFU in 2018, Dr Ford spent 11 years as a researcher at the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, collaborating on research with organizations such as ARM, BP, BT, Mars, Philips, Rolls-Royce and the UK's Royal Navy. Prior to that he completed his PhD on the subject of technological obsolescence, MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development, and MEng in Information Engineering at the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge. He has delivered executive education courses at Atos, BP and Technical University of Denmark and is a Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

If you're interested, you can see Simon talk about 3D printing as part of Beedie's Inside Innovation series; read his research papers on ResearchGate; laugh at him in the 2017, 2018 and 2019 SFU Faculty Smackdowns; and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Selected Publications

articles and reports

Related Teaching Material