About Our Lab

PI: Dr. Julie Linsey

The IDREEM lab focuses on the development of new methods and tools to support the early phases of the design process with a particular focus on innovation and conceptual design. The research is an integration of cognitive psychology and engineering design research. Our research seeks to understand designers' cognitive processes with the goal of creating better tools and approaches to enhance innovation.

Past work focused on gaining a deep understand of analogical reasoning—such as using nature for inspiration—within innovative engineering concept generation. This work resulted in a novel design method to assist engineers in identifying unexpected innovative analogies for their design problems. Current projects include studying makerspace best practices, using pen and tablet technology as a teaching instrument for statics courses, the ongoing development and implementation of functional modeling, and the role of physical representations in the design process.