Carnegie Mellon University
Integrated Innovation Institute

Engineering + Design + Business

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Mark's Headshot in front of iii background

Student Spotlight: Inspired to Design a Better World

Junyi (Mark) Yan (MIIPS ‘24) is inspired to build products that eliminate problems instead of creating them.

By Hannah Brelsford

After completing his undergraduate degree in industrial design, Junyi (Mark) Yan (MIIPS ‘24) decided that he wanted to better understand the holistic innovation process, which is when he pivoted to UX design. Currently, Mark is pursuing his Master of Integrated Innovation for Products & Services (MIIPS) degree at the Integrated Innovation Institute (iii).

The MIIPS program is a great place to pivot from one discipline or focus area to another, as it brings together students from diverse backgrounds in one place to innovate. The program acts as a bridge into the job market for students who enter directly from their undergrad program, like Mark.

“I wanted to pivot to UX design and gain a better understanding of the whole product innovation process. My undergrad program was mainly focused on physical product design, and the majority of it was industrial design, so I didn’t have experience with a lot of digital products.”

The Fast Facts: A Summary of Mark’s Time in the MIIPS Program

Inspired to Design ✏️
  • Interested in design from a young age
  • Inspired to design to make a difference 
A Collaborative Education 📘
  • MIIPS coursework involves many group projects 
  • Appreciates his cohort for all the different talents they bring to the table
Designing in Industry 💼
  • Worked for Hermes in a collaborative studio during undergrad 
  • Product Designer Intern at NIO
  • UX Design Intern at Philips
  • Current UX product design and industrial design intern at Roku
Mark Yan exploring the Forest
Mark exploring a forest.

Inspired to Design

Mark’s interest in design started at a young age.

Starting in elementary school and continuing throughout his life, Mark saw products that did not make sense. Their design seemed to solve some problems while creating others. Mark understood from that early age that the world needs better products, which eventually inspired him to go into the field of design. 

A specific product that frustrated Mark was the fan, specifically the design of the fins.While they create air circulation, they also collect dust and can be hazardous to users. Finless fans, on the other hand, are a design that makes sense, eliminating problems without creating more. 

These types of innovations sparked Mark’s interest in design and continue to drive his desire to contribute to a positive shift towards more user-friendly products in the industry.  

A Collaborative Education 

During his time in the MIIPS program, Mark has worked on group projects with many teams, each carefully curated to feature a different combination of classmates. 

“The cohort comes from all kinds of backgrounds, not only limited to business, design, or engineering. There are people coming from computer science, there are people from communications. A lot of different voices are being heard here. This is what you expect in your job.”

Mark especially appreciated the expertise of his classmates during the capstone project, a cornerstone of the MIIPS program. Capstone teams are designed and balanced to include students from engineering, business, and design backgrounds. His team worked on a luxury outdoor structure solution for Trex, working to understand and identify outdoor structures of interest to customers and incorporate these features within their final design solutions. Each team member contributed their expertise to make the project come together.

Mark and his Capstone Group Hugging

Mark and his capstone group

Before joining the iii, Mark was not exposed to this type of interdisciplinary learning.

“MIIPS is a great way to understand what an actual work environment is like. Throughout the capstone project, we learned how to communicate with clients, how to build and manage a team , and how to be a team player.”

Designing in Industry

Mark has previous experience in the design industry, including a collaboration with Hermes in a studio during his undergraduate education.

Additionally, he worked as an intern at NIO, a Chinese automobile manufacturer that specializes in electric vehicles, where he saw a very high standard for design in their work. During this time, he did some industrial design work and a bit of UX design as well. 

Mark was impressed by NIO's commitment to cutting-edge technology in design. Their innovative car battery changing station design resolved many issues faced by other electric cars.

After NIO, Mark started working for Philips, an electronics company, at their Shanghai office. He was involved in AI machine learning work within UX design, where he focused on optimizing the design prototyping and ideation process using AI, and trained the tools for the company to enhance productivity.

At Philips, he also had the opportunity to design for professionals within the healthcare field. He worked on redesigning radiology drafting systems that radiologists use to create reports after reviewing test results. This work helped to transform medical test results into viewable reports more seamlessly for doctors.

For his required internship as part of the MIIPS program, Mark is currently working for Roku, a technology company that focuses on television streaming. He is working as a UX product design and industrial design intern for the Device (Players and Remotes) team. His current project involves working within his team to eliminate errors in product processes and create seamless experiences for customers.

Between his education, passion for design, and industry experience, Mark is now focused on one thing: his desire to make a better world through the products that he designs.

"I want to design, I want to make the world a better place.”

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