Beth Altringer

Altringer earned a Master's degree in Architecture from the University of Cape Town and a PhD in the psychology of design from the University of Cambridge at Emmanuel College, with Mark de Rond.

Altringer researched design team processes as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University in Human-computer interaction, where she quantified the benefits of parallel prototyping (working on multiple prototypes at a time).[1] and modularized these results in collaboration with Bill Burnett at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. In 2012, while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she began developing new active learning courses to improve user-centered design and emotional design pedagogy for engineers and product designers. Altringer joined the full-time faculty at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 2014 and founded the Desirability Lab, which combines user-centered and emotional design methods. She helped bring human-centered design methods to the school[2], debunked popular myths about what fosters creativity,[3], and worked with Beth Hennessey and Teresa Amabile on the role of motivation in creative work[4] and the social psychology of creativity[5] [6]. She researched new models for practicing innovation that went beyond design thinking approaches[7], and documented the growing trend of digital nomadic creative work[8].

Altringer created several Harvard courses, including the Innovators' Practice[9] and Product and Experience Design: Experiential Lessons in Design for Desirability[10]. In 2016, students voted her one of the university's top 15 professors[11]. That same year, she joined the founding faculty of Harvard's joint Master of Science in Engineering and MBA Program[12] and helped launch the Undergraduate Technology Innovation Fellows Program for promising young entrepreneurs[13].

Today, Altringer runs a number of experimental initiatives, including the Flavor Genome Project[14] and Chef League[15] [16] [17], that are exploring how reflections on one's personal tastes might be embedded into products and services to empower users to more efficiently search for products they will enjoy[18] [19]. Altringer has served as the design and technical launch partner for Off Their Plate (an initiative providing economic relief to restaurant workers, while providing meals and care packages for frontline workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic) since its inception. In its first six weeks, Off Their Plate partnered with World Central Kitchen, a non-profit founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, and raised $3.4 million USD, 340,000 meals, and $1.7 million USD in economic relief to restaurant workers[20]

• 2018: Top 50 Thinkers: Emerging thinkers with the potential to make lasting contributions[21]
• 2016: Professors of the Year[22]
• 2005: Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction[23]
• 2003: Fulbright Program, Fulbright Scholar[24]

• Beth Altringer at Harvard University
• Desirability Lab