Feb. 15, 2024 — Eyewear designer June He is working to bring the optical into the Drexel University curriculum.

An assistant professor of product design at the university in Philadelphia and founding director of Empathic CoDesign Lab, He is leading the second iteration of an annual eyewear design course at Drexel—the first, a collaboration with Knows Eyewear, and this year, He has partnered with ClearVision Optical. The opportunity to share her decade of expertise brings her “great joy,” as she teaches skills that can be applied to all design industries, “from human-centered design methods to material and color exploration to prototype testing, 3D printing, and manufacturability analysis,” explains He.

“Through eyewear, I learned so much. Not only about the eyewear design, but about the diverse cultures and people across various aspects of the industry,” says He. “Eyewear is such a unique product at the intersection of medical device and fashion accessory. It requires deep understanding of human facial structure, psychology, and cultural symbolism.”

The designer joined Altair Eyewear’s design team in 2010 before moving onto Marcolin in 2018 as a senior designer creating styles for international brands. Working to break the apprentice-based learning model for eyewear design, He’s course leads students through a series of projects, including facial analysis, where students learn how to turn facial measurements into a well-fitting eyewear design.

Looking forward, He hopes to bring eyewear design into a recurring course within Drexel’s product design program. For more information, check out He’s scholarly paper introducing the pedagogical innovation she designed for the first course here.