JONATHAN CAGAN
Professor, ME, Computer Science, and Biomedical Engineering
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Professor Cagan's research focuses on the early design process. His interests span from computational tools and theories to product development practice. His computational work on design conceptualization and product layout emphasizes computational representation, generation, and optimizing search of the design space. His premise is that computational tools must support a design process modeled by lateral exploration, followed by a focused investigation of one or more good designs. Based on this premise, much of his work has concentrated on stochastic optimization algorithms as search techniques, and various grammatical representations to model, generate, and move within the design space. The result is a merging between artificial intelligence and operations research, giving a unique approach to addressing the conceptual design problem.

Professor Cagan's other area of focus is in user-centered design and new product development practice. He works closely with colleagues in industrial design, psychology, and business in creating new methods for product development that focus on the Fuzzy Front End of the product development process. In collaboration with Prof. Craig Vogel, of the School of Design, Dr. Cagan has been consultant to and conducted research with small and large companies and has conducted professional development seminars in Integrated New Product Development.  They annually co-teach a state-of-the-art course in Integrated New Product Development at CMU, which has resulted in patented products.  Through their consulting, research, and teaching they have identified a number of factors that contribute to successful products that redefine their markets and often transcend their original program goals to create new markets.  Profs. Cagan and Vogel’s book, Creating Breakthrough Products, summarizes their findings in a form that will aid practitioners and managers in the product development process.