Eric Anderson Appointed as Interim Head of the School of Design
On January 1, 2023, Professor Eric Anderson was appointed Interim Head of the School of Design after Bruce Hanington stepped down. Hanington will take a leave during the spring 2023 semester and return to the faculty in fall 2023.
Over the next 18 months, Anderson will lead the school in addressing existing priorities and its search for a new head of school.
Eric Anderson has been faculty in the School of Design for over 25 years where he has taught design thinking and strategy, user centered design methods, and experience design within the context of product design and product visualization studios at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He was one of the co-founders of the Integrated Innovation Institute (III) and is a former instructor and co-director of its Master of Integrated Innovation for Products and Services program that brought together design, engineering, and business students to learn product and service innovation.
In 2017 Anderson stepped away from the III to focus on his teaching and research in the School of Design. This move also provided him time to dedicate to his concurrent role as a Senior Associate Dean for the College of Fine Arts, which he has served in for over 10 years. The appointment to Interim Head of the School of Design means Anderson will step aside from his Senior Associate Dean appointment to focus full time as Interim Head.
Prior to teaching at Carnegie Mellon, Professor 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 product solutions in medical instrumentation, tradeshow exhibition, corporate identity, and consumer product spaces. Professor Anderson is a Past President of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), a member of the prestigious IDSA Academy of Fellows, and a past member of the Board of Trustees for The Design Foundation. He holds a BS in Industrial Design from the University of the Arts (formerly the Philadelphia College of Art), and a MA and MFA in Design Education from The Ohio State University.
In 2018, the Ohio State University, Department of Design, celebrated its 50th anniversary. Professor Anderson was selected as one of fifteen “Distinguished Alumn” to be honored by the department. As stated in the department’s announcement, “there is a lengthy and impressive list of graduates who span the years from 1968 to now, so being identified as one of the fifteen most worthy of celebration at this momentous time is quite an honor!”
Read Eric Anderson's writings on D&I:
Celebrating Pioneering Black Industrial Designers