Carla Diana is a designer, author, and educator exploring how intelligence takes physical form through robots, objects, and interactive systems. Her work investigates how behavior, motion, and sound shape the way people experience and relate to emerging technologies.
She is Associate Professor and Director of Product Design at Lawrence Technological University, where she leads students in exploring the intersection of emerging technology, physical form, and human experience. Carla previously served as Head of Design at Diligent Robotics and continues to work with the company as Design Advisor, contributing to the expressive behavior and form of Moxi, a socially intelligent robot designed to support healthcare workers.
Carla is the author of My Robot Gets Me: How Social Design Can Make New Products More Human (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021). Earlier in her career she worked at the innovation design firms Smart Design and frog Design. Her work has appeared on the covers of Popular Science, MIT Technology Review, and The New York Times Sunday Review.
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ROBOTICS AND INTELLIGENT OBJECTS
Poli Service Robot
Socially Intelligent Machines Lab, Dr Andrea Thomaz, UT Austin
Directives Digital Furniture
On demand, lasercut, flat pack furniture
PARC & Smart IxD Lab Future Electronics Visions
Bar Beacon at PLAY: Museum of Sex
NEST Sound Installation
xBlocks Mixed Reality Play Platform
Created with the team at the University of Pennsylvania’s xLab
Uberobject Père Ubu
Dora Maar House residency project
