MIE Seminar: Engineering Design as a Foundation for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Engineering Design as a Foundation for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Sundar Krishnamurty, Ronnie & Eugene Isenberg Distinguished Professor in Engineering
Vice Provost for Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Creativity
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tuesday, April 7, 2026 | 358 Snell Engineering | 3:30 pm—4:30 pm

Abstract: This talk highlights how core engineering design principles—problem framing, systems thinking, prototyping, and validation—underpin fundamental and translational research, as well as an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset. My research in design decision-making, ontology, and predictive analytics, as Site Director of the Center for e-Design at UMass Amherst, has enabled me to apply these principles across multiple projects, notably pressure vests for children with autism and retrofit seatbelt systems for motorcoaches. Those experiences naturally led me to take on a leadership role in the New England NSF I-Corps Hub program, a structured pathway for translating design-led research into real-world impact, and now to champion our campus’s innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity ecosystem.
The talk introduces NSF I-Corps and the UMass I-Corps Hub as experiential mechanisms for researchers to assess the real-world impact and commercial potential of their innovations. Practical benefits include evidence to refine research direction, stronger grant and translational proposals, expanded career pathways, and sustained connections to the innovation ecosystem. Importantly, the primary goal is learning and translation—not necessarily company formation—and the program provides concrete strategies for framing scholarly impact and moving research toward societal benefit.

Bio: Sundar Krishnamurty is Vice Provost for Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Creativity at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and has been the Ronnie & Eugene Isenberg Distinguished Professor in Engineering since 2020. In his current university leadership roles, he contributes to the Economic Development Leadership Team and serves as Lead Faculty at UMass Amherst as well as Tech Scout Lead for the NSF I-Corps Hub Northeast Region. His prior leadership appointments include Principal Investigator for NSF I-Corps @ UMass (2021–2025), Site Director for the NSF I/UCRC Center for e-Design (2012–2023), and Department Head of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering (2015–2025), following earlier service as Interim and Associate Department Head. From 2015 to 2020 he was Associate Director of the Center for Personalized Health Monitoring and Director of the Advanced Design and Fabrication (ADDFab) Lab. Krishnamurty is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, was inducted into the 2024 class of Senior Members of the National Academy of Inventors, and received the 2022 Excellence in Research Award from ASME’s Computers and Information in Engineering Division.

Hosted by: Department Chair & Professor, Yingzi Lin in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering