Elizabeth Gerber is a tenured professor in the

Segal Design Institute The Segal Design Institute (“Segal”) is an educational institute within the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University. Segal is dedicated to the study of human-centered design at the undergraduate and gradua ...

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

, and Technology and Social Behavior departments at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

Early life and education

Gerber earned her B.A. at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

in Studio Art and Engineering in 1998, and her M.S. at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in the Joint Program in Product Design in 2003. She earned her Ph.D. in Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University in 2007 working with

Robert I. Sutton Robert I. Sutton (born 1954 in Chicago) is a professor of management science at the Stanford University School of Engineering and a researcher in the field of evidence-based management. He is a ''New York Times'' best-selling author.

Chip Heath Chip Heath is an American academic. He is the Thrive Foundation for Youth Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the co-author of several books. Early life Heath graduated from Texas A&M University, ...

, and Pamela Hinds.

Career

Gerber has been on the faculty at Northwestern University since 2008. Her primary appointments are in the Segal Design Institute (School of Engineering), Mechanical Engineering (School of Engineering), and Technology and Social Behavior Department (School of Communication). She holds additional appointments by courtesy in Industrial Engineering & Management Science (School of Engineering), Management & Organizations (School of Management), Learning Sciences (School of Education & Social Policy), and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (School of Engineering). Gerber is the founder of Design for America, which is an organization of people dedicated to using design innovation for social good. Her research in design focuses on collective innovation and design education. Collective innovation is the process and study of (potentially) large groups of people who may not be familiar with design practice to work together to solve problems. Design education is thus related in that it considers how to teach students design. Gerber orients her research toward solving problems with positive social outcomes.

Awards and honors

Gerber has received a number of awards and honors for her research, teaching, and outreach, such as the

IEEE Computer Science and Engineering Undergraduate Teaching Award The IEEE Computer Science & Undergraduate Teaching Award is a Technical Field Award of the IEEE that was established by the IEEE Computer Society in 1999. It is presented for outstanding contributions to undergraduate computer science education ...

. She was named among Crain's Chicago Business 40 under 40. She has received multiple teaching awards at Northwestern University, including the University Teaching Award in 2016 and the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award in 2015. In 2018, Design for America, the national organization that Gerber founded, received a National Design Award for Corporate and Institutional Achievement from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.

Selected publications

* E.M. Gerber, J.S. Hui, and P. Kuo. Crowdfunding: Why people are motivated to post and fund projects on crowdfunding platforms. International Workshop on Design, Influence, and Social Technologies: Techniques, Impacts and Ethics. 2012. * E.M. Gerber. Improvisation principles and techniques for design. SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. 2007. * M.D. Greenberg and E.M. Gerber. Learning to fail: experiencing public failure online through crowdfunding. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2014. * E.M. Gerber, J.M. Olson, and R.L. Komarek. Extracurricular design-based learning: Preparing students for careers in innovation. International Journal of Engineering Education. 2012. * M. Dontcheva, R.R. Morris, J.R. Brandt, and E.M. Gerber. Combining crowdsourcing and learning to improve engagement and performance. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gerber, Elizabeth Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Northwestern University faculty Dartmouth College alumni Stanford University alumni American computer science educators