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. She has designed a range of products from robots to connected home appliances, and her work has appeared on the covers of Popular Science, Technology Review, and The New York Times Sunday Review.
Carla has been granted the honor of creating the 4D Design program at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, serving as its first Designer in Residence; it began accepting students in Fall 2019. She also serves as 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 writes and lectures frequently on the social impact of robotics and emerging technology and created the world’s first children’s book on 3D printing, LEO the Maker Prince. She was cohost for the Robopsych Podcast, a show that explored the design and psychological impact of human-robot interaction. Her latest book My Robot Gets Me: How Social Design Can Make New Products More Human, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in March 2021.
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.