Ross has been a practicing industrial designer for over 35 years and a part time academic (0.7FTE) for over 30. During this time, he has been the design director for various companies, the program director for Industrial design and the founder of multiple start-ups. His experience in both practice and academia is ideally suited to his bridging role as a principle investigator with the New Zealand Product Accelerator (NZPA). Since 2012 he has worked closely with one of the world’s largest 3D printer manufactures Stratasys and has travelled extensively internationally promoting the universities research done using their current and beta test technology. He has also worked locally with Weta workshop to give them access to world leading technology that they are ideally placed to commercialised. During this time he has instigated and supervised over 20 summer internships and supervised over 25 masters projects.

In 2004 Ross co-founded the design led futures (DLF) platform with the goal of connecting the ideas and aspirations of emerging design students with world leading companies to produce long term visionary future scenarios. It received significant funding (approx million dollars) from the NZ government and industry partners including Fisher and Paykel appliances, Methven, Nike HQ, Vodafone, Weta Workshop and Wellington City Council. It has now evolved into Future Under Negotiation (FUN).

Since 2003 Ross has been exploring and designing buildings made from recycled industrial waste and the results of this research have been published nationally and internationally in books, magazines, museum exhibitions and television. As 3D printing technology and materials have evolved, he has become increasingly interested in the potential of this technology to efficiently make homes that are both easy to make and equally importantly, unmake and recycle at the end of their useful life. In 2022 he co-founder the 3Dprintery company to manufacture architecture scaled 3D printers and recycling systems. 

He is also continuing his research into multi-material 3D printing that uses AI powered software to control micro scale (14 microns) droplets of UV cured resin. This process uses beta test equipment supplied by Stratasys and VUW’s in house J 850 printer. More examples of this research can be seen on the MADE research website https://made.ac.nz/projects/