Christopher Henley Named a 2026 Tartan on the Rise
Christopher Henley, an alumnus from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Design (BDes '15), has been named a 2026 Tartan on the Rise. Tartans on the Rise celebrates recent alumni who are making an impact in their organizations and in their communities, across the nation and around the world through leadership, innovation and career achievements. As an Industrial Designer at MSA Safety, Henley leads the user experience strategy for safety gear for firefighters.
Firefighters do everything they can to keep us safe. But how do they ensure their own safety on a call?
That’s a job for technology designed by Christopher Henley (CFA 2015), a principal designer with Pittsburgh-based manufacturer MSA Safety. He leads the user experience strategy for firefighter safety products, including gear that ranges from helmets and breathing apparatuses to search and rescue devices and their incident management ecosystem.
LUNAR is the kind of search-and-rescue tech you expect in spy movies: A wirelessly-connected thermal imager and search tool that helps locate firefighters and see through smoke. It integrates with a cloud-based accountability platform that visualizes their locations and stats as the incident they’ve responded to unfolds.
Like a smoke-filled building, Chris has to understand needs for products that aren’t easy to see. For example, firefighters’ thick gloves affect the functionality of handheld devices. He leads rounds of user research, prototyping and experimentation to shape the product for a multitude of variables.
“We’re trying to understand needs and situations at a deeper, more immersive level to gain empathy with firefighters when we design their tools. That’s what shapes my design process, and ultimately the products that come from it,” Chris says.
Read the rest of the story on CMU.edu
The School of Design wants to congratulate Henley on this well-deserved honor.