Ana Rita Morais

Ana Rita Morais (she/her) is a Portuguese-born, Toronto-based academic, educator, and administrator. She is the Dean for the Faculty of Business, Creative Industries, and Culinary Arts at George Brown Polytechnic where she works closely with administrators, faculty, and students. While in her role as Associate Dean for the School of Design, she led the development of the Honours Bachelor of Brand Design program and was the recipient of Eastern Canada's 2021 RGD Educator Award. Under her leadership, the School of Design was named Canada's #1 design school by the RGD in 2023, and placed first again in 2025.

She runs Pay Design Interns, a public database and campaign for the equitable pay of design and creative interns. She also produces an annual limited-edition wall calendar, now in its sixth edition, which has raised nearly $100,000 in emergency aid for BIPOC design students.

Most recently, she worked collaboratively on the identity and name vetting process for the WNBA Toronto Tempo. She was the Principal Investigator on a multi-year NSERC CCSIF funded project in partnership with Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, an inaugural curriculum developer and facilitator on the HXOUSE programming team, and formerly a member of the Board of Directors at The ArQuives—the largest independent 2SLGBTQIA+ Archives in the world.

Ana Rita holds a Doctorate from the Communication and Culture Program at Toronto Metropolitan University where she produced a SSHRC-funded research-creation project, me-dérive: toronto— an augmented reality counter-archive of Toronto's historical urban environments.

Previously, she was faculty at both George Brown and Toronto Metropolitan University, teaching courses in Interaction Design, Media Research, Strategic Storytelling, and Research Methodologies for Design and Media.

She has given talks at MIT, Oxford, City University London, and TIFF. Her work has been featured by the Advertising & Design Club of Canada, the Association of Registered Graphic Designers, The—Brand Identity, and Typewolf (twice!).

Overall, she's passionate about starting her own design school, research, calendars, and her English Bulldog Rosie.

Ana Rita Morais lives and works on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mazina'iga-ziibing Misi-zaagiwininiwag (Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation), the ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᒃ (Anishnaabeg), the ᐅᒋᑉᐧᐁ (ᒋᑉᐯᐧᐊ) (Chippewa), the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples.