Tracy Brandenburg, PhD.

Design thinking evangelist, trainer, design doer, anthropologist and woman of too many literature degrees, Dr. Brandenburg trains startups, students and executives how to master the design thinking skills that global design firm, IDEO, has cultivated for over 30 years.  She has regularly trained executives at Stanford’s Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design (“the d.school”). Tracy also pioneered three design thinking programs at Cornell University.

She emphasizes working on cross-disciplinary teams, teaching learners how to ask the “right” questions (the ones that lead to the most innovative solutions) and how to use ethnographic techniques to uncover the needs of users. 

Trained at Stanford’s Life Design Lab, she offers workshops on “Designing Your Life,” a design thinking technique that focuses on the individual, leading them to build a more joyful life. She has led participants in this program at Stanford as well as globally.

Passionate about social innovation, Tracy is currently working on a project she calls “Reimagining the Rust Belt.” She works with her hometown, Middletown, Ohio, that like many Rust Belt cities, is in desperate need of new business solutions, as well as innovative ways to tackle America’s drug epidemic.