Carla Diana is a designer, author, and educator who explores the impact of future technologies through hands-on experiments in product design and tangible interaction. In addition to her studio practice, she is Design Advisor and former Head of Design for Diligent Robotics, an Austin, TX, based company where advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning manifest in robot assistants to help healthcare workers.
Carla has been part of innovation design firms Smart Design and frog Design where she worked on a range of products from robots to connected home appliances. Her work has appeared on the covers of Popular Science, Technology Review, and The New York Times Sunday Review.
Carla writes and lectures frequently on the social impact of robotics and emerging technology. Her latest book, My Robot Gets Me: How Social Design Can Make New Products More Human (HBR Press 2021) discusses design strategies for everyday products. She is the creator of the world’s first children’s book on 3D printing, LEO the Maker Prince, and was previously co-host for the Robopsych Podcast, a show that explored the design and psychological impact of human-robot interaction. Her latest research is focused on autonomous vehicle systems as public transportation solutions.
In 2018 Carla was granted the honor of creating the 4D Design Program at Cranbrook Academy of Art, serving as its first Designer-in-Residence.
Carla holds an M.F.A. in 3D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from the Cooper Union.
The Lickestra
PROJECTS
CLIENT WORK | PRODUCT CONCEPTS | INSTALLATIONS | WORKSHOPS | EXPERIMENTS
Work from 2013-Present.
Directives Digital Furniture
On demand, lasercut, flat pack furniture
PARC & Smart IxD Lab Future Electronics Visions
Bar Beacon at PLAY: Museum of Sex
Poli Service Robot
Socially Intelligent Machines Lab, Dr Andrea Thomaz, UT Austin
