Department of Mechanical Engineering (archive)

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Art & Design
Michael and Denise Mack 2050 Challenge Scholar

2020 H.M. Black Engineering Building
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011-2161
Phone: 515-294-3298
Fax: 515-294-3261
e-mail: erinmacd iastate.edu

Links
Personal Page:  http://web.me.iastate.edu/erinmacd
Design Portfolio: www.coroflot.com/erinmacdonald

Education
Brown University, Materials Science and Engineering, B.S. 1998
University of Michigan, Mechanical Engineering, M.S., 2004
University of Michigan, Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D., 2008
MIT Sloan School of Management, Marketing Postdoctoral Researcher & Mechanical Engineering Instructor, 2008-2009

Areas of Interest
Product design; sustainable design; design optimization; behavioral psychology; construction of consumer preferences; judgment and decision-making regarding products; cognitive and learning styles

Biosketch
Dr. MacDonald is director of the Interdisciplinary Research in Sustainable (IRIS) Design Lab within the department of Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University (ISU).  She also holds an appointment in the College of Art and Design, and is a Michael and Denise Mack 2050 Challenge Scholar. Her research adopts methods and insights from psychology and marketing to address sustainable engineering design problems.  She and her research group focus on studying and understanding the role of consumer decisions and judgments about products in order to provide engineering design solutions to a variety of sustainability-related issues.

Dr. MacDonald’s dissertation research applied the theory of construction of preferences to engineering design, and was nominated for the distinguished dissertation award at the University of Michigan. The main case study investigated inconsistent customer preference for sustainable products from one purchase decision context to the next. 

Dr. MacDonald comes to Iowa State from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she researched the design of websites to match cognitive styles in the Marketing Department of the Sloan School of Management. She was also an Instructor in MIT’s Mechanical Engineering department.

Dr. MacDonald has previously worked as a business consultant and is an award-winning product designer.  She discusses the psychological intricacies of green design at companies such as Ford and Whirlpool.

At Iowa State Dr. Macdonald teaches classes on mechanical engineering design, and creativity &imagination in engineering. She has taught design courses at the University of Michigan, and robotic design at MIT.

Selected Publications

• MacDonald, E., Lubensky, A., Sohns, B. and Papalambros, P.Y., 2009, "Product Semantics in Wine Portfolio Optimization," International Journal of Product Development, 7(1/2), pp. 73-98.
• MacDonald, E., Gonzalez, R. and Papalambros, P.Y., In Press (first published on July 22, 2008), "The Construction of Preferences for Crux and Sentinel Product Attributes,” Journal of Engineering Design.
• MacDonald, E., 2008, The Construction of Preference in Engineering Design and Implications for Green Products, Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
• MacDonald, E., Backsell, M., Gonzalez, R., and Papalambros, P.Y., 2006, “The Kano Method’s Imperfections, and Implications in Product Decision Theory,” Proceedings of the 2006 International Design Research Symposium, Seoul, Korea, November 10-11.
• MacDonald, E., Gonzalez, R. and Papalambros, P.Y., 2009, "Preference Inconsistency in Multidisciplinary Design Decision Making,” Journal of Mechanical Design, 131 (3), 031009.