Becoming an Empathetic Design Researcher
October 2024 Yilin (Eddy) Chen (EDI '25) talks about his unique internship with Northwestern Medicine and the Lurie Children's Hospital.
October 2024 Yilin (Eddy) Chen (EDI '25) talks about his unique internship with Northwestern Medicine and the Lurie Children's Hospital.
September 2024 Elijah Li’s EDI thesis project led to a new scuba mask that would increase safety, improve navigation, and enrich educational opportunities provided by the underwater world.
September 2024 Pablo Gupta identified a problem facing content creators and used artificial intelligence to help them make better content more efficiently.
August 2024 Lucas Iezzi provided expertise without intimidation in an open-access makerspace on campus.
August 2024 A new video highlights students, alumni, and Advisory Board members discussing the benefits of the EDI program.
July 2024 Sue Kim leaned heavily on empathy to create a concept for an app that helps people who used to have braces wear their retainers as instructed.
July 2024 Yaritza Chavez’s EDI Thesis project helps neurodivergent people plan and schedule; it also demonstrates the importance of teamwork, even on independent assignments.
June 2024 Ada Michaels Shapiro’s EDI Thesis project helps caregivers and care recipients easily collaborate on financial matters.
June 2024 Design Innovation Thesis projects demonstrate passion creativity and design expertise
May 2024 Lindsay Lipschultz (EDI ‘24) shares how her experience as a design coach for undergraduate students enhanced her professional skill set.
April 2024 Ritika Ramesh shared her experiences and knowledge with undergraduate students as part of EDI's design coaching program.
March 2024 Dan Butt combined inspiration from his newborn child with skills he learned in the EDI program to chart a new course for his professional future.
March 2024 EDI students Patrick Giavelli and Kallie Mingay spent their summers advancing a developing technology at startup Vaulterra that could help reduce the impact of climate change.
February 2024 Two EDI students reflect on their experience creating Summer Studio, a place for student designers working in the healthcare industry to find connection and community.
February 2024 David Schatz-Mizrahi shares how the EDI program prepared him for his summer internship helping startup SteadyScrib develop its product to enable those with Parkinson’s uncontrollable tremors to once again write.
January 2024 Lucas Iezzi reflects on his internship experience making animatronic characters for theme parks with LF Studios and how the EDI program is shaping his approach to design innovation.
December 2023 Patrick Giavelli leverages EDI education and Northwestern’s academic, research, and entrepreneurial resources to steer the founding and development of a promising green tech company.
from The Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
October 2023 Sherry Xu (EDI ‘24) discusses her EDI Design Sprint project and the importance of user research to her success working with Uber Freight.
October 2023 Rick Hoobler discusses the EDI class he teaches and how his own career experiences demonstrate the way the important link develops between a company and its creations.
September 2023 Annie Thomas (EDI ‘23) discusses her Thesis project journey and how she arrived at the framework for a stop-motion animation kit for children.
September 2023 A collaborative event brought more than 60 EDI students and alumni together to start the school year, learn from one another, and experience the program's vibrant design innovation community.
August 2023 Autumn Basinger’s (EDI ‘23) thesis project aims to create a digital community to keep furniture from winding up in a landfill.
July 2023 Alexandra Andreiu (EDI ‘23) talks about her thesis project and developing a framework for a digital platform to help parents going through loss from miscarriages and stillbirths.
July 2023 David Du’s EDI thesis project aims to provide common ground among the distrust between creatives and artificial intelligence.
June 2023 Bryanna Benicia (EDI ‘23) explains why doing acoustic research was a key component of her internship with office furniture company Steelcase — and how it prepared her for life after EDI.
June 2023 Paige Hendersen (EDI ‘22) talks about how her mindset and skill sets shifted during her time in the EDI program and how that prepared her to become a design researcher at Sylver Consulting.
May 2023 EDI student Clark Mitchell spent the summer interning with United Airlines to help improve the company's signage system at airports across the country.
May 2023 EDI students begin the program by getting hands-on experience with real product innovation projects sponsored by Procter & Gamble.
April 2023 Get an inside look at what each EDI student created for their final Thesis projects.
March 2023 EDI’s Design Research course helped new students learn the foundation for human-centered design and develop ideas to promote care and independence.
March 2023 Auston Ferrarer’s summer work with Johnson & Johnson led to a full-time job with the company, which he'll start after hiking the Appalachian Trail.
January 2023 Sydney Bernstein talks about how the EDI program helped prepare her to work at IA Collaborative and how she approaches her work through human-centered design.
January 2023 Five EDI graduates work together at Milwaukee Tool, helping create innovative tools and worksite solutions while implementing the human-centered design skills they honed at Northwestern.
December 2022 EDI Director Amy O'Keefe looks back on the program's 15th anniversary and ahead to her hopes for the program's future.
October 2022 Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) alumni Alyssa Brown and Erica Isaacs are sharing their perspective on design research with students in EDI and the Segal Design Institute.
August 2022 Roni Greenberg’s Thesis project focused on an app designed to break the downward spiral of mental illness linked to and worsened by smartphone use.
August 2022 Georgios Skoufalos (EDI '16) turned his time in the EDI program into a pathway to help focus product designs to alleviate people’s struggles.
August 2022 Recent EDI graduates reflect on the opportunity to work directly with Jiobit to help discover a potentially new audience segment.
June 2022 Former Northwestern running back Jesse Brown (EDI ‘22) talks about how his experiences as an athlete inspired him to design a product for patients to stick with their physical therapy programs.
June 2022 For her Thesis project, Kayli Fradin (EDI '22) developed a new, safer way for people to meet online.
June 2022 Paige Hendersen (EDI '22) created an environmentally friendly subscription arts-and-crafts service for children for her Thesis in Northwestern's Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program.
April 2022 Get an inside look at what each of the EDI students created for their final Thesis projects.
April 2022 Students in Northwestern’s Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program demonstrate breadth and depth of their design innovation craft through individual thesis projects that illuminate each student’s unique skills as a hybrid designer.
April 2022 Students in Northwestern's Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program collaborated with the company known for its Roomba® vacuum cleaner to address new business opportunities.
April 2022 EDI advisory board member Kevin Bethune’s new book, Reimagining Design, reflects the optimism he brings to design during times of exponential change.
March 2022 The three co-instructors of one of the EDI program's foundational courses talk about the unique setup of their class and how it mirrors life in the design industry.
March 2022 Yao Shi (EDI '14) shares her experience as a senior product designer at Uber Freight and the skills she believes are necessary to be effective in her role.
February 2022 The Design Communication and Methods course helps students in Northwestern’s Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program apply design thinking to career exploration activities and assets.
February 2022 Adjunct lecturer Helen von den Steinen explains how a relationship between Procter & Gamble and Northwestern's Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program gives students first-hand experience with human-centered design.
February 2022 SueSan Chen (EDI ‘18) shares how they apply human-centered design principles learned in Northwestern's Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program to large-scale projects at United Airlines.
December 2021 Alumni from Northwestern's Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program hosted an informal reunion to share their own experiences with current EDI students.
October 2021 First-year students in the EDI program were inspired by Alice in Wonderland as part of their Design Boot Camp orientation workshop.
October 2021 Steelcase VP of Global Design and Product Engineering James Ludwig talks about his innovative Brand and Design Leadership course for students in Northwestern's Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program.
October 2021 Nicholas Daniel Phillips (EDI '17) and Sergio Marquina (EDI '17) launched Studio 2133 after spending two years as classmates in Northwestern's Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program.
October 2021 EDI Co-Director Amy O'Keefe explains why collaboration is critical to the success of any service designer, whether they are working alongside their teammates or through a computer screen.
September 2021 Lucy Hu (EDI '20) discusses the pandemic, its impact on her EDI Thesis Project, and her professional work as a product designer for a company that created a COVID-19 PCR test.
September 2021 Mengxue Bi (EDI '21) discusses her EDI thesis project and how she hopes to improve knowledge and understanding between clinicians in a hospital's ICU and the families of patients being cared for.
July 2021 EDI Program Director Jim Wicks reflects on how COVID-19 has introduced new industries and countless leaders to the value of design thinking.
May 2021 Arijit Nerurkar (EDI '20) reflects on reimagining the classic Playbill® product as his thesis project for Northwestern's Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program.
May 2021 Diana Jeong Ro (EDI '20) talks about her Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) thesis project and her attempt to help overcome anxiousness about math.
May 2021 Jean Jiang (EDI '20) explored why users felt discouraged from playing online games for her EDI thesis project and designed a solution that promotes fair play and inclusivity.
May 2021 For her Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) thesis, Kelly McComas (EDI '20) explored how libraries can become better outlets for people who do not take advantage of their vast amount of resources.
April 2021 Yifan Wu (EDI '20) brought together a passion for reptiles and knowledge learned in Northwestern's Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program to create a state-of-the-art smart home habitat for pets.
April 2021 Kristen Smith (EDI '20) reflects on their thesis project for Northwestern's Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program and how they are looking to reinvent the problem-solving process.
April 2021 Chris Baggott (EDI '20) looks back on his EDI thesis project and the impact he hopes it can have on intensive care units.
March 2021 Greater Good Studio Co-Founder George Aye shares the motivation behind this new course.
February 2021 EDI Boot Camp invites new students to build skills and community virtually through distributed design practice.
January 2021 The MS in Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program discusses some of the most common questions they hear from prospective students about the application process.
July 2020 The EDI alum, who currently works as Executive Design Director at Chase, recently participated in a New York City panel discussion for EDI students.
May 2020 Design leaders from across industries offer guidance and input on preparing students for emerging roles in design and innovation.
April 2020 Segal Design Institute faculty and staff adopt distributed design tools to deliver coursework in the wake of COVID-19.
from Northwestern Engineering
April 2020 Discover how a Northwestern EDI class helped validate the need for Chicago's new visual identity.
April 2020 Learn more about the Thesis projects created by each graduating student from Northwestern's Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program.
March 2020 Northwestern EDI ‘20 students recently visited Bay Area design studios and EDI alumni.
March 2020 Northwestern EDI student Kelly McComas reflects on her experience touring startups and design studios with design innovation graduate students in NY.
January 2020 Joanne Ting-Yu Hsu’s summer internship with Feeding America taught her to experiment and reflect more, thanks to alumnus mentor Dan Butt.
January 2020 Working with alumna mentor Aubrey Kraft at Kaiser Permanente Design Consultancy made Alyssa Brown’s summer internship an experience to remember.
December 2019 Northwestern University’s Master of Science in Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program celebrated the graduation of its accomplished master’s students on December 14.
December 2019 On December 13, graduating EDI students presented their thesis projects before faculty, mentors, family, friends, and classmates at the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center.
November 2019 Chris Spaulding (EDI '19) interned at Milwaukee Tool over the summer where he was mentored by two EDI alumni.
November 2019 Morgan Lewis (MS EDI '18) designed a sneaker for her Industrial Design class and now it is available as a limited edition shoe on the Nike website.
October 2019 A team of EDI students were honored as third place winners for an innovative menstrual cup system.
September 2019 The newest cohort of EDI students completed Design Boot Camp with presentations and a gallery walk in the Ford Design Studio on September 23.
July 2019 During the spring term, EDI students collaborated with 3M as part of the course DSGN 455: Design Strategy.
July 2019 Jim Wicks, Director of the MS EDI program, moderated a panel with representatives from Uber Health, HopeLab, and the City of Chicago before an audience of nearly one hundred people.
June 2019 Fourteen EDI students enrolled in a course called Design Sprints developed projects for industry partners, including Kraft Heinz, Lurie Children's, and Actualize Therapy.
May 2019 Christy Zhang, Hanna Lauterbach, and Chris Spaulding (EDI '19) will represent their startup called Maya in VentureCat, an event celebrating Northwestern's most promising student-founded startups.
April 2019 Baiju Shah, chief strategy officer for Accenture Interactive and global lead at Fjord, gave the talk “Design and Strategy: What’s Next?” as part of the Segal Design Leadership Series on April 17.
from Northwestern Engineering
April 2019 Each graduating student from the Engineering Design Innovation program completed a thesis project with support from faculty and industry mentors.
March 2019 Students from Northwestern Law and Segal Design Institute’s EDI program teamed up recently for Design + Law, an event that focused on design thinking as a problem-solving approach for legal service delivery.
March 2019 Master of Science in Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) students worked with the City of Chicago to explore new ways for residents to engage with city services.
from Northwestern Engineering
February 2019 In 2015, EDI students collaborated with the consumer products company to design a direct-to-consumer service called Tide Spin. Procter & Gamble announced it will roll out a version of the service to 2,000 locations by next year.
February 2019 Twelve EDI students traveled to Boston for the annual Integrated Design Innovation (IDI) Challenge to connect with master's students from peer programs and present work to Feeding America.
January 2019 Multimedia art projects created in the fall 2018 ‘Data as Art’ class will be on display in the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center until late February.
from Northwestern Engineering
December 2018 Each graduating student from the EDI program completed a thesis project with support from faculty and industry mentors. The projects spanned multiple fields of design including product, interaction, service, strategy, and user experience.
December 2018 Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science celebrated the graduation of its accomplished master’s students from the Engineering Design Innovation program on Saturday, December 15.
December 2018 On December 14, eighteen EDI students presented their thesis projects before faculty, mentors, family, friends, and classmates at the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center.
December 2018 The two-day event featured student work from Segal Design Institute courses and programs, including the MS in Engineering Design Innovation program, Segal Design Certificate, and first-year course Design Thinking and Communication.
from Northwestern Engineering
December 2018 Each graduating student from the EDI program completed a thesis project with support from faculty and industry mentors. The projects spanned multiple fields of design including product, interaction, service, strategy, and user experience.
November 2018 Students in the EDI program benefit from intimate conversations with alumni about how design integrates in different fields. That's important in an industry where integrated design innovation skills don’t fall easily into one job category.
October 2018 Twenty students in the winter 2018 Service Design course worked with Feeding America to create solutions to distribute rescued foods from retail stores to food insecure community members.
from Northwestern Engineering
October 2018 The EDI program welcomed 19 new students from 5 countries and 15 different schools to campus for Design Boot Camp, a pre-term session.
September 2018 This past summer, EDI students interned at Feeding America, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Microsoft, and Procter & Gamble Ventures among others. Four students share their experiences.
August 2018 EDI students developed conceptual ecosystems for the consumer robot company iRobot as part of their course DSGN 455: Design Strategy.
June 2018 During a pilot course, 11 EDI students gained a hands-on experience with Uber Freight's efforts to transform one of the nation’s most critical industries.
June 2018 Julia Savich, EDI '17, and Northwestern students with Design For America Summer Studio work to take the stress out of air travel for wheelchair users.
from Northwestern Engineering
May 2018 Gar Waterman, EDI ‘18, balances his courses in human-centered design with work on a student-led startup called PedalCell.
May 2018 Phoebe Evans, EDI '17, is a Breakthrough Technology Process Engineer for Mars Wrigley Confectionery. In her spare time, Evans has developed her EDI thesis project, Gumdrop, into a market-ready product.
March 2018 In a Service Design course, 20 EDI students developed new ways for Feeding America to get food into the hands of those who need it most.
February 2018 EDI students help solve human-centered design issues for undergraduate entrepreneurs working on startup companies.
from Northwestern Engineering
February 2018 On January 27, seventy-seven students from Northwestern, Illinois Institute of Technology, Purdue University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago gathered on Northwestern’s Evanston campus to kick off the White Space Design Challenge.
January 2018 Each graduating student from the EDI program completed a thesis project with support from faculty and industry mentors. The projects spanned multiple fields of design including product, interaction, service, strategy, and user experience.
December 2017 On December 8 at the Ford Engineering Design Center, graduate students displayed their projects at the 2017 EDI Thesis Show, the culmination of the students' 18-month academic journey.
December 2017 The two-day event featured student work from several Segal Design Institute courses and programs, including the MS EDI program, student group Design for America, and first-year course Design Thinking and Communication.
from Northwestern Engineering
November 2017 Graduate students from Northwestern, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon presented prototypes intended to help those with disabilities navigate urban areas.
October 2017 EDI's Studio Director, Amy O’Keefe, works toward making design degrees more consistent among peer institutions.
from Northwestern Engineering
October 2017 The EDI program has announced Jim Wicks as the new Director of the EDI program. Before joining the faculty at Segal Design Institute in 2016, Wicks was the Senior Vice President of Consumer Experience Design at Motorola.
September 2017 The newest students in the MS EDI program completed a ten-day bootcamp in design, mechatronics, fabrication before the official start of their program.
June 2017 Students enrolled in the MS EDI program participate in summer internships at a variety companies, including Autodesk, IDEO, Medtronic, and Procter & Gamble.
April 2017 Students in the EDI program collaborated with Dr. Ruchi Gupta, a Northwestern-based food allergy researcher, to address the vulnerability of students with life-threatening food allergies on college campuses.
December 2016 Each graduating student from the Engineering Design Innovation program completed a thesis project with support from faculty and industry mentors. The thesis projects spanned multiple fields of design including product, interaction, service, strategy, and user experience. Browse each student’s final thesis project below.
December 2016 The thesis projects spanned multiple fields of design including product, interaction, service, strategy, and user experience.
December 2016 Segal Design Institute celebrated the newest graduates from the MS EDI program.
November 2016 Nearly 80 graduate students from four Integrated Design Innovation programs – Northwestern, University of Pennsylvania, MIT and Carnegie Mellon – were tasked to inject innovative design into medicine.
November 2016 Engineering Design Innovation students targeted food allergy risks on college campuses with Dr. Ruchi Gupta from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
October 2016 Chicago Ideas Week inspired city residents to think, dream and connect. EDI students were among the crowd, thanks to support provided by the Norman Fund.
September 2016 Incoming students to the EDI program participated in Design Boot Camp before the start of the fall term.
March 2016 EDI alumnus and SAP Experience Designer Matt Glibbery helped design Super Bowl 50's Super Bowl City. Read this Q&A to learn more about his experience working on the project.
March 2016 JDF awards yearly scholarships to students who demonstrate a commitment to engineering and the development of new ideas. Meet this year's three scholars from Segal.
from Segal Design Institute
December 2015 EDI class of 2015 graduated this week, moving the program's alumni count into the hundreds. Family, friends, and faculty celebrated the students and all of their accomplishments in Ford prior to the ceremony.
from Segal Design Institute
December 2015 EDI class of 2015 culminates their 15-month program with final thesis project presentations with projects ranging from products to services to strategies.
December 2015 EDI class of 2015 culminates their 15-month program with final thesis project presentations with projects ranging from products to services to strategies.
from Segal Design Institute
December 2015 Northwestern Engineering researchers break through the touchscreen technology, putting tactile information at users' fingertips. Literally.
from Northwestern Engineering
November 2015 Segal Advisory Board member Robb Olsen talks about his role at P&G, the company's six-yearlong partnership with EDI, what it's like working with his wife and more in this Q+A.
from Segal Design Institute
November 2015 Students from Northwestern and the University of Pennsylvania participated in the third annual 24-hour Design Challenge. This year's focus was emergency epinephrine access.
September 2015 A new class of EDIs started orientation this month, learning new skills and creating projects that embodied this year's theme of Wabi Sabi.
from Segal Design Institute
August 2015 EDI alumni are finalists for INDEX: Award 2015, a global design award focused on "Designing to Improve Life." The winners will be revealed on August 27 in Denmark.
from Segal Design Institute
August 2015 EDI student Torey Kocsik was recently interviewed by James Dyson Foundation about how she came to be an engineer as well as some of the challenges of being a female in a male-dominated industry.
December 2014 The MS-EDI class of 2014 recently presented their final thesis projects.
December 2014 The MS-EDI class of 2014 recently presented their final thesis projects.
from Segal Design Institute
December 2013 The EDI class of 2013 has completed their thesis work.
December 2013 The MS-EDI class of 2013 recently presented their final thesis projects.
from Segal Design Institute