Autodesk Visiting Fellows Program Brings in Outside Perspectives

The Autodesk Visiting Fellows Program recruits exceptional, industry-shaping talent to help light the future path of Autodesk. Although fellows have rich sectoral expertise, they tend to focus on defining and pursuing opportunities emerging at the intersection of our traditional markets and technologies.

Over the last decade, Autodesk has moved steadily from being an industry fast-follower to shaping the markets it serves through thought leadership coupled with vibrant technological innovation. The Visiting Fellows program is an accelerant in this process, challenging established assumptions with critical outside perspectives, defining new areas of opportunity, and helping the company "connect the dots" across divisions and market sectors. Rapidly accelerating convergence across the industries we serve make the integrative nature of fellows' work particularly critical to the future of Autodesk.

• Visiting fellows focus primarily on path-lighting but often make connections across product maturity levels due to the integrative nature of their work.

• Visiting fellows are expected to define, with internal support from key Autodesk personnel, a project to complete during the period of their fellowship. The project can take many forms, including a proof of concept, targeted research, writing, and demonstration projects. All fellows are expected to engage with storytelling for internal and/or external audiences.

• The duration of a visiting fellow visit is flexible, but most often 3-12 months.

The program is led and administered by the Strategic Foresight team in the CTO organization. Fellows are chosen by Strategic Foresight in close consultation with individuals and groups across the company.

Current Visiting Fellows
	coming soon	The Autodesk Visiting Fellows Program is transitioning from an in-office experience to a remote collaboration experience for members in academia.
	coming soon	The Autodesk Visiting Fellows Program is transitioning from an in-office experience to a remote collaboration experience for members from industry.
Past Visiting Fellows
Fellow	Timeframe	Description	Internal Publications
Alex Lobos	September 2019 to June 2020	Alex Lobos focuses on design, technology, and emotional attachment as a means to elevate the quality of life. He is Professor and Graduate Director of Industrial Design at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), in upstate New York. At Autodesk, Alex was a Visiting Academic Fellow, focusing on helping Autodesk develop best-in-class learning systems. He is also Expert Elite for Fusion 360, a member of Autodesk University's Advisory Council, AU Featured Speaker, and recipient of Fusion 360's Education Award. He has collaborated with several groups at Autodesk, including Fusion 360 and ReMake product teams, Sustainability Workshop, and Design Academy. In conjunction with these collaborations, a university-wide partnership between RIT and Autodesk Education Experiences (AEX) was signed in early 2019. Alex's research and academic work have been sponsored by companies such as AT&T, Colgate-Palmolive, General Electric, Kraft, Makerbot, Staples, Stryker, Sun Products, Unilever, Wegmans, and of course Autodesk. He lectures and teaches frequently throughout Europe, Asia, and North/Latin America. Alex is a recipient of the Eisenhart Award, RIT's highest recognition for teaching excellence. He has been a juror for the International Design Excellence (IDEA) Awards and the Ibero-American Design Biennial, as well as industrial designer for General Electric. Alex was born in Guatemala, where he started his career as an industrial designer and in 2002 moved to the U.S. as a Fulbright scholar. He holds an Master of Fine Arts from the University of Notre Dame and a Bachelor of Industrial Design from Universidad Rafael Landivar. Alex investigated how the science of learning applies to the software Autodesk applies.	Advancing the Autodesk Learning Engine Closing the Gap between Vision and Execution The Ghost in the Machine
Mickey McManus	July 2014 to February 2016	Mickey McManus started his first fellowship in Autodesk Research, while on sabbatical from MAYA (he shifted to Chairman and out of day-to-day operations in May of 2014). Mickey began his fellowship at Autodesk on July 1, 2014, and was focused on a thesis about an emerging Primordial soup and what happens when things wake up. The first experiment in that exploration was Hack Rod (what happens when your product is part of the design team) and the mapping out of conceptual toolsets that will be needed in an age that combines dynamic systems built of the IoT — things and places can sense and respond to their phenomena— with digital fabrication— they can do arbitrage between software and hardware updates — and machine learning — those things and places have opinions of their own and can evolve their nature via the shaping forces in the ways they are nurtured in the real world. His goal was to learn about and play with the emerging work happening around the CTO organization to see what sorts of new mindsets we'd need.	There Be Dragons (Let's Go Over and Pet Them) The Primordial Brew: What Will you Do When the World Wakes Up? How to Build an IoT Apocalypse Systems 123D and the Rise of Networked Matter What if Three Kids in a Garage Could Start a Car Company?
	February 2016 to February 2018	Mickey's second phase was joining our Autodesk Educational Experience team in February 2016 to explore primordial in the context of the future of learning. What happens when we shift from K-12 to K-grave and our systems can accelerate mastery by using In Situ formative assessment and learning reciprocity between human and machine learners. The first experiments were around the universal skill tree and the idea of applying generative design ideas to learning itself (Generative Learning). The real stars of each of these efforts were the researchers and subject area leaders, but Mickey was able to come along for the ride and explore what the strategic and business implications could be as we make a shift to consumption and retention models and moving from treating users as fixed personas to developmental learners.	(System) Blind, (Team) Deaf, and (Learning) Dumb. Ego/Ecosystems: A Meta-Essay about Riffing, Jamming, and Improv (a.k.a. Zen and the Art of APIs, a la Robert Pirsig) From Fixed to Flowing, The Verbs at the Heart of the Future of Work
	February 2018 to February 2020	Mickey's third phase started last February when he rejoined the CTO organization and the newly reimagined Strategic Foresight team. On a personal side, he sold MAYA to BCG and shifted to being a senior advisor there. For Autodesk, he focused on high-performance machine/human teams at the point where we explore thriving in the future of making things (what does the future of work look like in the built world as we shift from jobs to lifelong workflows and automation takes over tasks we previously used to define ourselves). He focused on the concept of Bose dynamic noise canceling but for creative/technical cognitive biases in individuals and teams. His hypothesis was that most human biases thus far have been exploited and amplified by algorithms to drive “denial of curiosity/reality” attacks by the likes of social networks such as Facebook, but he believed that there are thousands of documented design/engineering/architectural methods (at LUMA, the team documented over 1500 techniques from design, systems thinking, the Toyota way, Lean, etc.) that map to canceling some of the most destructive human biases and we may be able to pick key methods and automate them within our tools to help unblock teams. The goal was to focus on enhancing human cognition, attention, perception, curiosity, and creativity rather than destroying it. To do that he demonstrated that interdisciplinary machine/human teams can explore more possibilities more richly and or adopt new technologies in expressive rather than traditional ways faster and with more "muscle memory," than in the traditional modes of collaboration (i.e., horrible conference calls, dismal meetings, and the array of collaborative messaging tools that amplify the ills of 20th-century organizational collaboration pathologies.)	The Bank of Better
Yaël Eisenstat	April 2019 to October 2019	Yaël Eisenstat brought a completely unique perspective to Autodesk. She's spent 18 years working at the intersection of ethics, technology, security, and government policy. Yaël has served as an intelligence officer, a national security advisor to Vice President Biden, a diplomat, Facebook's Global Head of Elections Integrity Operations, a corporate social responsibility strategist at ExxonMobil, and the head of a global risk firm. She is currently also a policy advisor to the Center for Humane Technology, headed by Tristan Harris, and sits of the Council of Foreign Relations. Her work has appeared in publications like the New York Times, TIME, WIRED, Quartz, and The Huffington Post. Yaël has appeared on BBC World News, CNN, CBS News, PBS, and C-SPAN, in policy forums, and on a number of podcasts. Check out her latest WIRED article entitled "The Real Reasons Tech Struggles with Algorithmic Bias." Yaël was recognized by Forbes in 2017 by being included on the list of "40 Women to Watch Over 40." Her full bio and press pieces can be found on her website.	Exploring Ethics and Data
Tim Spaulding	August 2018 to June 2019	The Secretary of Defense Executive Fellows program began in 1994 with the goal of transforming of the Department and its military forces and capabilities. Annually, each service component selects several officers to serve in executive roles at high-performing and innovative corporations. Colonel Tim "Ivy" Spaulding (United States Air Force) is Autodesk's Defense Fellow for 2018-2019. Tim's 17 years in the Air Force have included tours as an F-15E pilot in Afghanistan and Europe, experimental flight test and evaluation of new radars, software, and missiles, and program management, most recently forming and leading the team acquiring the T-X — the Air Force's newest training aircraft. As a fellow, Tim works on the Strategic Foresight Team in Autodesk Research.	Building a Communitarian Culture
Marco Annunziata	March 2018 to December 2018	Marco Annunziata joined Strategic Foresight to provoke and deepen our point of view on the Future of Work. Marco met across Autodesk divisions and helped us define the Visiting Fellows experience. Marco analyzed the interplay of innovation and global economic trends and assessed the impact on business models and strategies. He has worked in policy, finance, and industry — most recently as GE's Chief Economist and Head of Business Innovation Strategy. Marco is a regular contributor to Forbes.com. He consults, writes, and speaks. Most of all, he loves to learn by collaborating, engaging in discussions, and reading. Marco was based in San Francisco; He has worked in London, Washington D.C, Milan, Toulouse. See www.annunziatadesai.com for more information.	The Future of Work What do Autodesk and GE Have in Common? Data-Driven Outcomes
Zachary Miller	June 2016 to June 2017	The Secretary of Defense Executive Fellows program was established by the Secretary of Defense in 1994 as a long-term investment in transforming US forces and capabilities and, as such, is a key part of the Department of Defense strategy to achieve its transformational goals. Fellows get to express a preference as to where they are assigned, and year after year, Autodesk is the most requested destination. Secretary of Defense Fellow, Colonel Zachary Miller, learned about how we explore, invent, and innovate and shared some of his impressive experience in leadership and building infrastructure in demanding environments. Over the last 20 years, Zach has served in a number of command and staff assignments, including four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just prior to visiting Autodesk, he was a battalion commander in the 101st Airborne Division where he led a 1,700 person task force in eastern Afghanistan. His command was responsible for the security of Parwan Province and Bagram Airfield, the largest base in the country and home to over 18,000 people. Zach is presently deployed back in Afghanistan, this time commanding an advisor battalion embedded with the Afghan Army. His next assignment will be running the Army Corps of Engineers district responsible for the Central Mississippi River.	Getting More Stuff Done Faster - An Organizational Approach What is the Role of Leadership for Courage in Context? What is Courage? What do Simplicity, Accountability, and Speed Mean? New Commander-in-Chief? No Problem! (How the Military Handles Leadership Changes)
TJ Kneale	June 2015 to June 2016	Secretary of Defense Fellow, Commander Thomas "TJ" Kneale of the United States Navy, worked with OCTO in leading an Autodesk initiative to conduct research, experiments, collaborations, and development in relation to seafaring commercial or military activity. Our team worked closely with other parts of the company, e.g., the Autodesk Recap team, to coordinate our activities. TJ will be joining Autodesk alumnus, Maurice Conti's, team at Telefonica upon his retirement from the Navy.	How to Catch a Fox A Farewell to Autodesk

Autodesk has always been an automation company. Today, more than ever, that means helping our customers automate their design and make processes. We help them embrace the future of making, where they can do more (e.g., quantity, functionality, performance, quality), with less (e.g., energy, raw materials, timeframes, waste of human potential), and realize the opportunity for better (e.g., innovation, user experience, efficiency, sustainability, return on investment). Bringing in visiting fellows to help shape preferable futures for our customers is part of providing the opportunity for better.

Expanding our perspectives is alive in the lab.