Our team includes researchers and students with experiences in engineering, design thinking, psychology, product realization, and design innovation.
Current Team
Executive Director
- David Sirkin, PhD leads our group under Professor Larry Leifer’s designX lab. David received his PhD from Stanford in ME Design, and Master’s degrees from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and in Management.
Research Staff
- Rebecca Currano, PhD – Research Scientist in ME Design
- Veronika Domova, PhD – Postdoctoral Fellow in ME Design
PhD Candidates
- Lawrence Domingo – PhD Candidate in ME Design
- Okkeun Lee – PhD Candidate in ME Design
Alumni
Leadership
- Wendy Ju, PhD – Former Executive Director now Associate Professor at Cornell Tech
PhD Graduates
- Sonia Baltodano, PhD – Senior UX Researcher at Google
- Lorin Dole, PhD – UX Researcher at Google
- Xiao Ge – PhD Candidate in ME Design
- Mishel Johns, PhD – Ford Motor Company
- Jamy Li, PhD – Assistant Professor at Ryerson University
- Joseph Makokha, PhD – Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Oslo
- Nikolas Martelaro, PhD – Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University
- David Miller, PhD – Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Central Florida
- Brian Mok, PhD – Senior UX Engineer at BMW Group Technology
- Dylan Moore, PhD – Associate at McKinsey & Company
- So-Yeon Park – PhD Candidate in ME Design
- Srinath Sibi, PhD – Design Engineer at Zoox
Postdocs and Visiting Scholars
- Nikhil Gowda – Senior Researcher at Amazon
- Heather Knight, PhD – Assistant Professor at Oregon State University
- Annabel Sun – Analytics Specialist at Zalando
- Hamish Tennent – UX Design Technologist at Volkswagen IECC
Rotating and Visiting PhD Students
- Ignacio Cases, PhD Candidate in Computational Lingustics
- Ernestine Fu, PhD – Adjunct Professor at Stanford Civil Engineering
- Xiaosong (Jack) Qian, PhD – Postdoctoral Researcher at Beijing Institute of Technology
- Rob Semmens, PhD – Assistant Professor at Naval Postgraduate School
- Marco Spadafora, PhD – Experience Design Manager at Deloitte Digital
- Stephen Yang, PhD – Software Engineer at Google
- JD Zamfirescu – PhD Candidate in Computer Science at UC Berkeley
Masters Students
- Brittany Hallawell – Firmware Engineer at Zoox
- Halsey Hoster – Hardware Technical Program Manager at Amazon Lab126
- Catherine Smith – Manager at WET Design
Undergraduate Students
- Clara Dewey – Mechanical Engineer at Hyperfine
- Madison Largey – Cofounder at Jinx Drinx
- Rosa Lutz – Research Assistant at University of Otago
Administrators
- Crystal Pennywell – Manager of the Center for Design Research
- Gosia Wojciechowska – Assistant at the Center for Design Research