Beth Altringer

Beth Altringer served as Professor of the Practice of Engineering at Brown University and Founding Executive Director of the joint Master of Arts in Design Engineering (MADE) program with the Rhode Island School of Design from 2021 to 2025. In this role, she developed innovative pedagogical approaches at the intersection of design, engineering, and the arts to address complex problems through interdisciplinary learning. The MADE program emphasized collaborative efforts across the design-engineering divide, challenging students to create delightful solutions such as visualizations of urban experiences in Boston's Data Landscapes project. Altringer's work at Brown built on her extensive experience in design education, where she integrated data and design to enhance human experience and foster collaborative intelligence. Her academic background includes a PhD in the psychology of design from the University of Cambridge at Emmanuel College, a Master's degree in Architecture from the University of Cape Town, an MPhil from the University of Cape Town, a Diplomado from PUC Chile, and BS and BA degrees from ASU Barrett Honors College. She also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT and served as a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Computer Science Department in human-computer interaction.

Prior to Brown, Altringer was faculty at Harvard University's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Graduate School of Design, and Business School from 2011 to 2021, where she directed the Design Lab and taught courses on innovators' practice, product design, and experiential lessons in design for desirability. She was a founding faculty member of Harvard's joint Master of Science in Engineering and MBA Program. Her research specializations encompass user-centered design, emotional design, human-computer interaction, innovation methods, and design education. Key publications include 'Prototyping Dynamics: Sharing Multiple Designs Improves Learning' presented at CHI 2011 and 'A New Model for Innovation in Big Companies' in Harvard Business Review (2013). Altringer has contributed to projects like the Flavor Genome Project and Chef League for learning user preferences, as well as sustainable materials design and the Gita mobile carrier robot at Piaggio Fast Forward. She delivered public lectures, including on humanity-centered robotics at Brown's Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative.

Professional Email: bae@brown.edu