Contact:
Eric Sloss
412-268-5765

For immediate release:
August 30, 2005

Carnegie Mellon School of Design Appoints Overbeeke to the Nierenberg Chair

Cornelis (Kees) Johannes Overbeeke

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University has appointed Cornelis (Kees) Johannes Overbeeke the 2005-2006 Nierenberg Chair of Design in its School of Design. Overbeeke joins a select group of world-class designers and scholars who have been recognized as innovators in the field to share their knowledge with the school's students and faculty.

Overbeeke has taught industrial design for 17 years at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. In 2000 he served as a founding faculty member for the Industrial Design Department for the Eindhoven University of Technology.

"We look forward to having Kees join us for the academic year and share his expertise in interaction design and design research," said Dan Boyarski, head of Carnegie Mellon's School of Design. "He is well respected in the human-computer interaction arena and we're proud to be providing him a home for his teaching and further research work," he said.

Overbeeke's teaching philosophy emphasizes a close collaboration between instruction and research. In the past, he has worked with graduate students to explore emotionally intelligent projects, such as an emotionally intelligent alarm clock, causing the students to take a closer look at the intricacies of everyday interactions.

Carnegie Mellon's Nierenberg Chair of Design in the School of Design is considered to be one of the most important and prestigious appointments in design education in the United States. The Nierenberg Chair of Design is a visiting professorship established through the generosity of Theodore D. Nierenberg, one of the founders of Dansk International Designs, an alumnus and emeritus life trustee of Carnegie Mellon.

The School of Design is one of five schools within Carnegie Mellon's College of Fine Arts. The College of Fine Arts is a community of nationally and internationally recognized artists and professionals organized into: Architecture, Art, Design, Drama and Music, and their associated centers and programs.

For more information about the Nierenberg Chair or the College of Fine Arts, please contact Eric Sloss at 412-268-5765 or email him at ecs@andrew.cmu.edu or visit: www.cmu.edu/cfa.