Jesse Austin-Breneman

Jesse Austin-Breneman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Working towards his vision of sustainable design methods which incorporate an understanding of system-level social impact, his research interests include design for development, design optimization, complex system design by teams, and modeling socio-technical systems in real organizations. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2014 and was a MIT Tata Center Post-doctoral Fellow in 2015. There he studied design processes used by teams of practitioners in both developing economies and aerospace organizations. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a development engineer in Peruvian NGOs, working with rural communities and local doctors. He also spent two years as a high school mathematics teacher in Boston, MA. Jesse is currently the co-chair of the ASME Engineering for Global Development Research Committee and is a recipient of the 2020 ASME Ben C. Sparks Medal.