(Photo credit to Tony Pulsone)
My name is Justin Lai and I was a graduate student (Master's) in the mechanical engineering department at MIT after completing my Bachelor's in mechanical engineering in the same department. My research considered how people design through processes and in practice, how to teach students to design products for people. Areas of focus included: user-needs analysis, creativity, tacit knowledge, communication, and social science methods.
Two significant teaching projects I have been a part of are 2.97 Designing for People and Discover Product Design—now serving as an advisor. Additionally, I was a part of a team who developed resources for portfolio creation, Ideation Lab Portfolio Resources.
After grad school, I worked for three years (2011–2014) as the Invention Education Associate at the Lemelson-MIT Program with the InvenTeams initiative.
Email me at justinlai at mit dot edu to find out what I’m up to now.
Written work (links to come. email if you'd like)
AIEDAM Journal Article: A Study of the role of User-Centered Design Methods in Design Team Projects
IASDR Conference Paper: Introducing User Centered Design to Mid-Career Professionals: Experiences to Build Upon
CV
Research Summary (PhD application statement of purpose)
Poster from DCC08
Paper for Technical report for DCC08
Paper for DCW08
Conferences that I have attended
Design Creativity Workshop, June 2008, Georgia Tech (no link)
SIGCHI-Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2009, Boston, MA
International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference, October 2009, Seoul, South Korea (no link)
Press coverage
Reading List
Advice for grad life: applying, surviving, and thriving
Blogs