James B. Angell Distinguished University Professor & Donald C. Graham Professor; Professor, Mechanical Engineering/Architecture/Art and Design
About
I work in design optimization of products and systems, and in advancing design as a holistic yet scientific discipline, integrating practice-based thinking with science-based understanding. Through my research and teaching, I aimed to establish the scholarship and use of mathematical design optimization as a standard tool in modern design practice. In extensive collaboration with industry and government agencies, I worked on design optimization for advanced automotive systems, including electric and hybrid powertrains and structural design, and linked them with product development, commercial, and regulatory decisions to derive business and government policies. The Analytical Target Cascading (ATC) method developed in our Optimal Design Laboratory is the first proven globally convergent multi-level coordination algorithm for multidisciplinary optimization, considering both organizational and computational complexity. In our design science research, we studied design preference elicitation and modeling, and linked engineering design models with those from marketing, behavioral, and social science.
