Committee Members
Committee Members
Committee Chair
Christine Toh, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Nebraska at Omaha
School of Interdisciplinary Informatics
ctoh@unomaha.edu
Christine Toh is an Assistant Professor in IT Innovation in the School of Interdisciplinary Informatics at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She obtained her PhD in Industrial Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University in August 2016. Her research focuses on studying human decision-making and the antecedents of creativity in design, and developing an understanding of the larger context of innovation and entrepreneurship in engineering and technology settings. Christine has taught classes on IT Innovation, Interaction Design, and Product Dissection. Her research to date has spanned topics such as individual attributes and biases in team decision-making, information use in for-profit design streams, and user perceptions of trust with automated technologies.
Christine participates primarily in DTM and DEC- The study of creativity and methods that support creativity in the design process and education is the main focus of her research, and DTM and DEC provides an excellent outlet for this research interest along with the opportunity to meet other like-minded researchers.
Elizabeth Starkey
Post-doctoral Scholar
The Pennsylvania State University
ems413@psu.edu
Primary IDETC conference(s) : DEC and DTM
I am a Post-doctoral Scholar in the School of Engineering Design, Technology, and Professional Programs (SEDTAPP) at Penn State. I obtained my PhD in Industrial Engineering from Penn State in 2018. My PhD research focused on the impact of variations in product dissection on learning and creativity in engineering education and I will be presenting some of my findings in both DEC and DTM at this year’s conference. My research interests include engineering education, creativity, design theory and methodology, and decision making.
Workshop Co-Chairs
Nicole B. Damen
PhD Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant
University of Nebraska Omaha
ndamen@unomaha.edu
Primary IDETC conference: Design Theory and Methodology
Nicole Damen is a graduate research assistant and PhD in IT candidate at the University of Nebraska Omaha. She obtained her double graduate degree in M.S. Management Information Systems (University of Nebraska Omaha, United States) and in M.A. Management, Communication and IT (Management Center Innsbruck, Austria).
Her research interests are in the cognitive and behavioral factors related to the design process. Examples of her research work include design decision-making, knowledge sharing and information organization processes.
Murtuza N. Shergadwala, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of California, Santa Cruz Silicon Valley
Department of Computational Media
Murtuza.shergadwala@gmail.com
Murtuza is an active participant in DTM, DAC, and DEC conferences. These conferences are excellent platforms to engage with other researchers interested in understanding human behaviors such as decision-making, learning, strategic thinking, reasoning, and communication.
Dr. Murtuza Shergadwala is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz- Silicon Valley campus in the Department of Computational Media. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in 2020. He graduated with a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India in 2014. Through the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University, he has also obtained a certificate of teaching and learning.
His research interests are interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of sociotechnical design, systems engineering, engineering design, cognitive psychology, engineering education, and serious games. Overall, he is interested in understanding the factors that influence cognition and behaviors towards improving design outcomes.
Other committee members
Charlotte de Vries, PhD
Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering
Pennsylvania State University Erie, the Behrend College
cud142@psu.edu
Charlotte is an active participant in the BIOMED, DAC, and DEC conferences.
Dr. Charlotte de Vries is an Assistant Professor at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. She graduated from Penn State University with her M.S. (2013) and Ph.D. (2014) in Mechanical Engineering. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts in 2009. Dr. de Vries’s research interests lie in design methodology, specifically medical design and design for human variability. Her current research focuses on quantifying the variability of scapula in order to model changes in shape due to the effects of osteoarthritis. This model aims to provide surgeons and implant designers with suggestions to improve surgical outcomes.
Ambrosio Valencia-Romero
PhD Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant
School of Systems and Enterprises
Stevens Institute of Technology
avalenci@stevens.edu
Primary IDETC conference: Design Theory and Methodology
Ambrosio is a PhD candidate in systems engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology working under the supervision of Dr. Paul T. Grogan. He conducts human-subject and multi-agent systems research on collective decision-making processes in engineering design. At Stevens, he is a doctoral student peer mentor and has served as the student representative of the Graduate Student Academic Integrity Board and as the program chair of the institute’s annual Graduate Research Conference. Ambrosio holds a bachelor's and a MSc degrees in Mechanical Engineering from respectively the Universidad Del Atlántico in Colombia and the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez.
Brian Sylcott, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Engineering
East Carolina University
sylcottb15@ecu.edu
Brian is an active participant in the DTM and DAC conferences.
Dr. Brian Sylcott is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering at East Carolina University. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Sylcott served as a visiting Assistant Professor at Bucknell University. After receiving his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University Dr. Sylcott worked in the energy industry for a few years. He then returned to Carnegie Mellon to complete his M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. His work focuses on developing new approaches to model consumer preference for subjective product attributes such as form and emotion. This research combines methods from several disciplines including engineering, marketing, and cognitive neuroscience.
Janet K. Allen, PhD
John and Mary Moore Chair and Professor
Fellow of ASME
The School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
The University of Oklahoma
Janet.allen@ou.edu
Janet Allen is the Chair of the Design Education Committee Conference (DEC), she is also active in Design Theory and Methodology (DTM) and the Design Automation (DAC) conference. With Farrokh Mistree she facilitates the NSF/ASME student design essay contest.
The focus of Janet Allen's research is in the area of simulation-based design, especially managing uncertainty in the design of processes and products and on design pedagogy. Her areas of interest include sustainability and energy production and distribution. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Mechanical Design and Professor Emeritus in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Jose E. Lugo
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez
Primary IDETC conference: DTM and DEC
Dr. José E. Lugo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Notre Dame in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Department. Previously he received his M.S. and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. His research focus is Design Methods, in the area of product form and function. He is applying Gestalt Principles from Psychology to describe product form and predict subject judgment. He recently started to built Virtual Environments to conduct subject product evaluations.
Kate Fu, PhD
Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Design (joint)
Georgia Institute of Technology
kfu@me.gatech.edu
ASME/DED Broadening Participation Committee – Co-Chair
Kate is an active participant in the DTM and DAC conferences.
Dr. Kate Fu is an Assistant Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology with a joint appointment in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Design. Prior to this appointment, she has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). In May 2012, she completed her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. She received her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon in 2009, and her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Brown University in 2007. Her work has focused on studying the engineering design process through cognitive studies, and extending those findings to the development of methods and tools to facilitate more effective and inspired design and innovation.
Kathy Jacobson
Lockheed Martin, retired
jacobsonk@asme.org
Primary Conferences – DEC and DFMLC
Kathy Jacobson recently retired after a 33 year career of industrial experience specializing in applying Design for Manufacturing and Affordability in the early product design phases. She held positions with General Electric and Lockheed Martin in manufacturing engineering, systems engineering, finance, and conceptual design. Kathy’s ASME involvement includes chairing the Design Engineering Division Special Committee on K-12 Awareness of Design Engineering and past chair of the Design for Manufacturing Technical Committee. Her active involvement in outreach to K-12 students has provided engineering and STEM opportunities for thousands of youth through Girl Scout and Science Olympiad programs.
She is leading the ASME Design Engineering Division committee developing a Girl Scout Councils-own Mechanical Engineering badge and actively participates in the IDETC conference Girl Scout badge workshops. A girl scout herself, she was her daughter’s Girl Scout leader for 12 years, and the last 16 years, she has been co-lead of a nationally ranked middle school Science Olympiad team and recently became involved at the State level of Science Olympiad. Kathy earned her BS engineering from UCLA and is an ASME Fellow.
Shraddha Joshi, PhD
Research Associate
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
joshis@andrew.cmu.edu
Shraddha is an active participant in DTM and DEC conferences
Shraddha Joshi is currently working as a Research Associate in Mechanical Engineering Department at Carnegie Mellon University. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship with Professor Jonathan Cagan at Carnegie Mellon University in 2016. As post doc, she investigated the avenues of internet of things and connected products . She also currently teaches Engineering Design II (Capstone Design course) and Junior Seminar class in Mechanical Engineering Department at CMU. She earned her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Clemson University with her research focused on understanding the role of requirements in engineering design by novices under the guidance of Professor Joshua Summers. She received her MS in Mechanical Engineering from Clemson University and her BE in Mechanical Engineering from Nirma University, India. Her research interests primarily include Requirements in Engineering Design, Internet of Things, Connected Products and Systems design, Design Education Research, Research Methods for Design.
