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Susan Sokolowski

Professor of Sports Product Design at the University of Oregon and Former Nike Innovation Leader

Meet The Changemaker
Susan Sokolowski is a designer, educator, and innovation leader who has helped shape the future of footwear and product design. After more than two decades at Nike, she founded the Sports Product Design program at the University of Oregon, where she mentors the next generation of designers. Her work combines creativity, technology, and sustainability to inspire solutions that have a lasting impact.
Why Their Work Matters
The products we use every day begin with the decisions made during the design process. Susan advocates for designing with purpose, showing that innovation can improve performance while reducing environmental impact. By educating future designers and promoting responsible product development, she is helping build a more sustainable future for the sports and fashion industries.
The Conversation
From designing innovative products at Nike to educating tomorrow's design leaders, Susan Sokolowski shares insights from her remarkable career in sports product design. In our conversation, we discuss the importance of sustainable innovation, how design can solve environmental challenges, and the responsibility designers have in shaping a better future.

Throughout your career, you've helped shape products used by millions of people. What responsibility do designers have in addressing the environmental challenges facing the fashion and footwear industries?

"Oh gosh, we have so many responsibilities and challenges.

I talk about sustainability as an ecosystem because it's not only about the products that we make, it's about where those resources and those products come from.

Say I'm wearing a top that's made out of petroleum-based materials, which includes a lot of polyesters, nylons, and those sorts of things. Then we create these products, which, you could argue, means we're creating more garbage, right? And so we're creating more opportunity for landfill.

Then, after the consumer or the user is done using it, what are they doing with it? Are they reusing it? Are they throwing it away?

I do a lot of work with sports, and a lot of products and athletes are actually contributing to environmental change. If you look at triathletes, they're swimming in barrier reefs. They're creating pollution. You go to places like the New York City Marathon, and people are throwing their clothes on the ground when they're too hot. All of those things are micro-leaching into our environment.

So, it's a very complex problem, and we have to think about it across the whole lifecycle of a product—even before the product is made. It's very complicated."

Many of the biggest sustainability challenges require entirely new ways of thinking. What innovations in design or materials make you most optimistic about the future?

"Yeah, I think, for me, bio-based material innovation is probably the most promising. I think it's also important not to forget about our past. We used to make a lot of apparel, footwear, and equipment out of things that were created by nature, and I think we have to look at that again and see how we can make it better.

I feel like biomaterials are probably the best way forward."

When creating a new product, how do you balance performance, aesthetics, functionality, and environmental considerations?

"Well, it depends. So often, I'm working for other people, other companies or other individuals. It really depends on where sustainability sits in their hierarchy. Where it makes sense, it's definitely a focus. But if I'm working for a client where sustainability isn't part of their business, I have to be really careful as a designer because I'm being hired to do that work for them specifically.

If it's my own work, I care about it a lot. I'm doing a body of work right now that's sort of making fun of our industry. I can pull up a photo for you of something I just created.

It's really about bringing attention to what we're doing and looking at different ways of making things."

Many students are passionate about both creativity and sustainability. What advice would you give young people who want to use design to make a positive impact on the world?

"I think you've got to learn about materials, like fiber science, and how materials are made.

I don't think people really understand the root chemistry behind the problems that we've created. We've done a very good job of creating some very hazardous materials for our environment.

So, I think understanding the textile science behind it is probably the number one thing.

Then, once you understand that, it's about designing products that have fewer pieces, use less energy to manufacture, and looking at what we call yield, how much fabric we use. We're cutting out a garment, or if we're building a mold of something, how much material are we using?

Really, it's about thinking about it at all levels of making. Even down to questions like: Does this product have a second life? Could it be made into something else? Could it be used for something else? Could it be handed down?

So, when you can, really think about sustainability as a designer in that way. That's probably the best way to look at it."

If you could redesign one aspect of the fashion or footwear industry for the future, what would you change and why?

"If that's related to sustainability, I think, for me, it would probably go back to bio-based work and really challenging what we've done in the past. It's about questioning, 'What else could we do?'

I think we're really reliant on polyester in our industry because it's very cheap. I think we have to find a better solution for that.

Yeah, I feel like so many clothes now are just made out of polyester."

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