Dr. Erin Bradner, Distinguished Research Scientist

I have blogged about Autodesk's own Erin Bradner before:

• Dr. Erin Bradner says "You're very welcome" to Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School
• Recurve Bow designed with Project Dreamcatcher
• Why the AutoCAD UX Team is Really a Lean Startup
• Power to the People: Building Technology as if Humans Mattered
• Bloomberg: What's the Future of Work Look Like?

I am pleased to share that Dr. Erin Bradner has been promoted to Distinguished Research Scientist. Erin joined Autodesk in 2002 as a user researcher, conducting hundreds of user research sessions to identify the sweet spot where technology feasibility, viability, and desirability meet. Over the last 15 years, she has broadened her impact in three areas: as a research scientist, as a lead for design research customer pilots, and as a storyteller and thought leader for Autodesk.

• In her role as senior research scientist, Erin was on the founding team for generative design at Autodesk — the early customer research into computational design helped incubate the technology from concept to commercialization. She has proven her ability to evaluate user experience without bias — in customer interviews she regularly identifies innovative functionality that customers seek. In terms of customer pilots, Erin led our scientific partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Labs last year, collaborating with the Computational Science group to develop functional gradients in additive manufacturing and paving the way for future government collaborations. She was awarded a patent for integrating components into 3D printed objects last year.

• In terms of thought leadership, Erin has crafted stories for the Autodesk University keynote presentation team for the last three years and has developed the ability to explain what we are doing and why it matters to a wide audience. She partnered with the sales team over the last few years meeting with key customers to understand their needs. She's shared the generative design message with customers like Lego, Tesla, Eaton, LaFarge Holcim, Ford, and Nissan. She spearheaded a plan to secure visits with Heads of State at the Hannover-Messe conference last year — playing a direct role in getting President Barack Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel to visit our booth. That was a thrill for everyone involved. She continues to leverage her speaking skills by representing Autodesk at domestic and international events.

• Prior to coming to Autodesk Erin consulted for start-ups — designing the first commercial intelligent agents and cloud storage in the nineties — and worked at IBM, Boeing, and AT&T. Erin is co-inventor on patent applications in advanced design and publishes her research in academic literature. She has a Ph.D. in Information & Computer Science.

Everyone at Autodesk congratulates Erin on this well-deserved promotion! Join us. Erin is always eager to learn about new computational design methods from Autodesk customers. Let us know about the amazing work you’re doing in optimization and computational design at [email protected].

Distinguished research is alive in the lab.