Ezio Manzini is a professor at the Politecnico di Milano in Italy and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Parsons, the New School for Design, in New York. For more than two decades, Manzini has been working in the field of design for sustainability. Most recently, his interests are focused specifically on social innovation as a major driver of sustainable changes and what design can do to support it. With this perspective, he founded and currently coordinates DESIS (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability).

DESIS is a network of design labs (Designmatters/Art Center is one of the labs) based in design schools and design-oriented universities actively involved in promoting and supporting social change.