Research Areas

In the Design Research Collective, we explore research at the intersection of engineering design, psychology, and computer science to create superpowers for designers, engineers, and problem-solvers.

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People Doing Design

Humans make things happen. We study individuals and teams as they create new products and systems.

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AI/ML Supporting Design

By building ML systems in response to human needs, we can give problem solvers computational superpowers.

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Human-AI Collaboration

We elevate AI as a partner in the problem-solving process, helping teams achieve breakthrough solutions to wicked problems.

Application Domains

Across these research areas, we make fundamental advances in some important application domains. Here are a few of those.

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Additive Manufacturing

We help designers capitalize on the new capabilities provided by additive manufacturing and 3D printing.

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Marine Renewable Energy

As climate change continues to impact our world, we design new ways to generate electricity from the power of the ocean.

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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, we search for new opportunities to deliver goods and services to the people who need them most.

Recent publications

  1. Automating Interaction Dynamics Notation for Real-Time Team Analysis (2026). Journal of Mechanical Design.
  2. VizArQA: A Foundation for Visual Question Answering in Architectural Simulation (2026). Journal of Engineering for Sustainable Buildings and Cities.
  3. Toward a Time-Aware Assessment Framework for the Carbon Cost of AI-Enabled Decarbonization (2026). ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering 2026.
  4. Structure Shapes Coordination: An Empirical Evaluation of Organizational Design Principles in Multi-Agent Engineering Design (2026). International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference.
  5. Special Issue on Generative Artificial Intelligence for Design, Manufacturing Processes, and Materials Systems: Part I (2026). Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering.