Eric AndersonAssociate Professor School of Design and Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts
Margaret Morrison 201A
ea@andrew.cmu.edu(412) 268-3181
Eric Anderson is an associate professor of industrial design and the Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts. He teaches undergraduate design studio courses, and, with faculty from CMU’s Mechanical Engineering and Tepper School of Business, he co-teaches the award winning Integrated Product Develop (IPD) capstone course in the Master in Product Development program. The IPD course focuses on team-based integrated product development among engineering, business, and design disciplines.
Anderson also serves as the Chairman of the Industrial Designers Society of America’s (IDSA) national Board of Directors.
His research interests include interdisciplinary integrated product development, visualization within the context of design, and the emergence of “visual intelligence,” the skill that allows designers to reason with complex information using varied tools and methods in order to shape environmental and behavioral conditions.
In addition to his work in integrated product development, Anderson explores opportunities to shift the paradigm of how visual education is approached and taught to design and to non-design students with the goal of fostering the inclusion of voices across disciplines. Anderson’s work successfully helps students of design, engineering, business, and other disciplines effectively shape ideas and express their voice within the design process. His approach has also been successful in community outreach efforts where he has engaged youth labeled “at risk” in critical thinking and problem solving through design.
Prior to teaching at Carnegie Mellon, Anderson spent over a decade as a full time design practitioner for corporate departments and consulting firms based in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (Philadelphia area), where he designed a broad variety of products including medical instruments, tradeshow exhibits, corporate identities, and consumer products.
Anderson holds a BS in Industrial Design from Philadelphia College of Art, and an MFA and an MA in Design Education from The Ohio State University.
