Maria C. Yang

Robert N. Noyce Career Development Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Systems

Room 3-449B
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge MA 02139-4307
Phone: 617-324-5592
Email: mcyang@mit.edu
Web: http://web.mit.edu/ideation/

Administrative Contact:
Natalie Illsley
Room 3-449
Phone: 617-324-6108
Email: ndweaver@mit.edu

Research Interests
Design methods, design process, product design, information capture and retrieval, interaction design

Education
PhD, Mechanical Engineering (Design Division), Stanford University, 2000
MS, Mechanical Engineering (Design Division), Stanford University, 1994
SB, Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991

Related Experience
2003-2007 Asst. Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Univ. of Southern California
2002-2003 Instructor, Mechanical Engineering, California Institute of Technology
1999-2002 Designer/Director of Design, Reactivity, Inc.

Honors and Awards
2006 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award

1999-2007 MIT Mechanical Engineering Visiting Committee (Presidential Appointee)
1991-1994 National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship

Selected Publications (past 5 years)

M. C. Yang. “Observations on Concept Quantity and Sketching in Design.” Research in Engineering Design. 20(1):1-11.
Z. Li , M. C. Yang, and K. Ramani (2009). “A Methodology for Engineering Ontology Acquisition and Validation.” AI EDAM: Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing. 23(1): 37-51.
J. Y. Lai, E. T. Roan, H. C. Greenberg, and M. C. Yang. (2008) “Prompt versus Problem: Helping Students Learn to Frame Problems and Think Creatively". 2nd Design Creativity Workshop, Third International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition. Atlanta, GA, USA, June 2008.
M. C. Yang and Y. Jin. (2008) “An Examination of Team Effectiveness in Distributed and Co-located Engineering Teams.” International Journal of Engineering Education. 24(2): 400-408.
D. A. Broniatowski, C. L. Magee, J. F. Coughlin, and M. C. Yang (2008) “The Influence of Institutional Bias on System Review and Approval.” Conference on Systems Engineering Research, April 4, 2008, Los Angeles, CA.
M. C. Yang and J. G. Cham. (2007) "An Analysis of Sketching Skill and its Role in Early Stage Engineering Design." ASME Journal of Mechanical Design. 129(5), p. 476-482.
M. C. Yang (2007) "Design Methods, Tools, and Outcome Measures: A Survey of Practitioners." ASME 2007 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences Computers and Information in Engineering Conference. September 4-7, 2007, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
M. C. Yang, W. H. Wood, and M. R. Cutkosky. (2005) "Design information retrieval: A thesauri-based approach for reuse of informal design information." Engineering with Computers 21(2):177-192.
J. G. Cham and M. C. Yang. (2005) "Does Sketching Skill Relate to Good Design?" Proceedings of IDETC/CIE 2005 ASME 2005 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Sept 24-28, 2005, Long Beach, California, USA.
M. C. Yang. (2004) "An Examination of Prototyping, Time, and Design Outcome." Proceedings of 2004 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, Sept 28 - Oct 2, 2004, Salt Lake City, Utah USA.
M. C. Yang. (2003) "Concept Generation and Sketching: Correlations with Design Outcome." Proceedings of 2003 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, Sept 2-6, 2003, Chicago, IL, USA.

Personal website (includes downloadable papers):

http://web.mit.edu/~mcyang/www/biosketchPubs.html