I'm an Associate Teaching Professor in Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. I try to help people think better, create better, solve problems better, and communicate better.

A few words about Carnegie Mellon University, and the Heinz College:

Carnegie Mellon is the top-ranked University for AI in the United States (USN&WR Rankings, 2024). We are highly ranked in almost every other area as well.

Heinz College is consistently ranked the #1 school in the United States for Information and Technology Management (USN&WR Rankings, multiple years), an assessment reflected in our graduate and undergraduate programs, and in our extremely robust and high-value executive education certificate programs for C-Suite executives.

Heinz College has been named a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education by the NSA and U.S. Department of Homeland Security, identifying us as a crucial asset to cybersecurity education and practice in the United States.

Since I'm all about information efficiency, rather than make you wander around a website to find what you want, this page will give you a quick overview of who I am and what I do, but more important, will guide you to the information you want and to some tools that you may find helpful.

The links below will enable you to view or download what you are interested in.

Contact me

clabash@cmu.edu

Teaching

I teach a wide variety of graduate-level courses in our Academic and Executive Education Programs, mostly on our Pittsburgh campus, but I also teach on our Doha, Qatar campus, and have taught in Canada, the UK, China, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, and online. Here are the course descriptions and latest syllabi of my current courses:

Heinz College Academic Courses

Professional Speaking: Our core communications course. Content focuses not just on communication skills, but on critical thinking, use of evidence, persuasion and influence, data visualization and AI. All Heinz College grad students have to take it. You'll find the course website here.

ConsultingLab: A course and research lab that does real consulting projects with real clients to produce real results. Students learn a problem-solving approach, which we call The ConsultingLab Way, to help them bring consulting behaviors and insights to their project clients. You'll find the course website here.

IdeaLab: One of the few undergrad courses that I teach, on creative thinking and how to successfully advance ideas. Students learn how to develop and apply a mindset, approach, process, and tools to the rapid development of their ideas. Design Thinking is a key part of class, but it covers much more than that.

Heinz College Executive Education Courses

I teach courses in strategy, innovation, communication, and data visualization in almost all of our C-Level executive education programs. 

Chief Information Officer Certificate Program

Chief Data & AI Officer Certificate Program

Chief Information Security Officer Certificate Program

Chief Digital Officer Certificate Program

Chief Risk Officer Certificate Program

Digital Data Leadership Program for the US Army, the US Air Force, and government agencies (contact me for details about this course)

An example video of my short class: "10 Ways to Get The Board on Board" (a Wall Street Journal Cybersecurity Webinar) is available here.

Research

My research focuses on how misinformation and disinformation can be mitigated, as well as on other communication topics. I'm part of  Carnegie Mellon's Center for Informed Democracy and Social-cybersecurity (IDeaS), where my colleagues and I study disinformation, hate speech, and extremism online. Here are overviews of my current research projects:

What works in Public Service Advertising and Why (Working Paper)

Design for Trust

Briefing Briefers

Bio and CV

Heinz College Faculty Bio

Curriculum Vitae

Writing

I write things to help my students (and others) think and communicate better. Here are a few of them. I'll add more from time to time.

A Primer on Persuasion

Distance Communication Fieldbook

Strategy Sprint (excerpt)

How to do (good) research (and why it matters) (Editor)

In Development: The 50 Essential Things You Must Know to Develop (and give) Better Presentations (excerpt) 

In Development: The 50 Essential Things You Must Know to Develop Better Ideas (excerpt)

Consulting

I consult in the areas of strategy, branding, innovation, and communication with diverse clients, including our own Software Engineering Institute. I'm also the Managing Director of ConsultingLab, a project-based course and research lab here at the Heinz College. We've done projects for FedEx, the US Army, and many nonprofits and other organizations. If you are an organization who feels that you may be able to benefit from a team of bright, motivated graduate students offering you about $15,000-worth of free consulting work, please reach out to me at clabash@cmu.edu. You'll find more information on what we do, how we do it, and how successful we've been in our ConsultingLab Prospectus and on the ConsultingLab web site. If you would like to submit a project proposal, please complete our ConsultingLab Start Form.

If you'd like to talk with me about my personally consulting on a project, please reach out to me at clabash@cmu.edu.

Tools and resources that may help you

I create a lot of tools to help my students think better, create better, solve problems better, and communicate better. Here are a few of them:

LABASHLabs Overview

uLab Idea Development Model

Communications Brief (Document)

Communications Brief (User Guide)

Presentation Design Canvas (Document)

Team Design Canvas (Document)

Sprint Report

Labash Evidence Hierarchy

StrategySprint

Recent Media & Presentations

"AI Could Ultimately Complement, Not Compete, with Humanity"

April, 2025

"AI’s ubiquity will tempt us to give up ownership, control and responsibility"

November 2023

"The Future of Human Agency"

February 24, 2023

"Elon Musk, free speech, democracy, and the power of social media"

April 28, 2022

My original presentation explaining the Design for Truth research:

June 22, 2022

(I'm at 2:43:36)

History (and, I hope, value)

I'm not a very typical college professor. My route to academe was a circuitous one but, as it is for most of us, that may be what creates value in my teaching, writing, and consulting:

Ketchum Advertising: Started as a copywriter. Learned a lot about writing, design, creative thinking, idea development, relationship management, project management, negotiation, and drinking.

Creamer Lois FSR: Another ad agency. Creative legend George Lois was the president. I worked in New England and New York, mostly on financial services clients.

Ketchum, again: They invited me back. Apparently I hadn't overstayed my welcome. Stayed until I became Executive Vice President, Executive Creative Director. Ketchum was at the time the 15th-largest ad agency in the world. I worked on everything from the Space Shuttle to diet drinks to computer hardware and software to pretty much anything else you can think of.

iBrand: Strategy and branding consultancy that I started with former Ketchum Director of Client Services Mark Hurst. Worked on financial services businesses, Hanes, and Victoria's Secret.

DDI: One of the largest Leadership & Assessment companies. I was VP of Global Marketing.

The Branding Group: Branding Consultancy that I started with supremely-talented designer Dennis Moran and organizational whiz George Bond. Worked mostly with startups, Including FreeMarkets, one of the most successful.

Carnegie Mellon: Even on my first day here, it felt like coming home. Started as an Adjunct Professor, now an Associate Teaching Professor.

The Essential Questions

Like most teachers, I try to ask provocative questions in class that go beyond the usual class-oriented content. It's easy to ask questions about best practices in communication or innovation; harder to ask questions of an existential nature. And while I'm not trying to turn my classes into philosophy classes, I do want to stimulate critical thought, especially as we move increasingly forward in a world where evidence, intelligence, and humanity seem to matter less and less.

Inspired by John Brockman and edge.org's Annual Question, I ask students to create evidence-supported final presentations that address such "essential questions" as, "Does it matter if there are poor people?" and "What's the logical next step in human evolution?" and "Should a species ever be intentionally eliminated?" and "What does it mean to be human in the age of AI?" and "Does Art Still Matter?" 

You can view the answers, and add your voice to the conversation here.

Thanks for visiting.

Everything on this site, and all downloads, are unless otherwise specified protected by a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND License, which enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. Preferred attribution is (c) Chris Labash, 2025.