Rate My Professor Ian Gonsher

Ian Gonsher is Assistant Professor of the Practice of Engineering in Brown University's School of Engineering and Department of Computer Science, specializing in design research within architecture and design contexts. An alumnus of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), he earned a BFA in Industrial Design and History of Art from the University of Kansas in 2001 and an MFA in Furniture Design from RISD in 2006. Gonsher has a long history of fostering collaborations between RISD and Brown University. As faculty mentor and co-founder of the Brown Design Workshop, he teaches studio-intensive courses that cultivate students' creative processes and apply them to interdisciplinary design practices. His offerings include ENGN 0930C DesignStudio, ENGN 1000 and ENGN 1001 Projects in Engineering Design, CSCI 1951C Designing Humanity Centered Robots and Technology, and ENGN 0030 Introduction to Engineering. Previously, he served as adjunct lecturer in Brown's School of Engineering from 2011 to 2016 and in the Department of Visual Art from 2007 to 2011, and as lecturer at Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science in 2022.

Gonsher's academic interests center on creative processes in design engineering, particularly emerging technologies such as telepresence, robotics, 3D printing, mixed reality, human-computer interaction, furniture design, and design theory. His research explores humanity-centered technology, positive sum design principles, and integrating interfaces into the built environment. Key publications include "Portalware: Exploring free-hand AR drawing with a dual-display smartphone-wearable paradigm" with J. Qian et al. (DIS 2021), "Robots as furniture, integrating human-computer interfaces into the built environment" with J.Y. Kim (HRI 2020 Companion), "Differential 3D scanning" with A. Hattab et al. (IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 2017), "The Telepresence of Furniture in Extended Reality" (Interactions 2024), "Principles of positive sum design" with W. Rutter et al. (Proceedings of the Design Society 2025), and "Designing for Wide Adoption: An Inexpensive and Accessible Extended Reality (XR) Device" with P. Feng et al. (HCI International 2023). In 2025, Gonsher was part of a Brown Engineering faculty team awarded an NSF grant for developing co-teaching modules. His contributions advance fields like human-robot interaction, extended reality applications, and innovative design education.