Georgia Van de Zande
She/her
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Active

education
- S.B., Mechanical Engineering, MIT
- S.M., Mechanical Engineering, MIT
- Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, MIT
select courses taught
- Design Nature
- Design for Manufacturing
awards
- MIT Goodwin Medal Award for above ordinary excellence in teaching of a graduate student
- First place team in USAID and the Bureau of Reclamation’s "Desal Prize"
research
- Global Engineering
- Design Theory
- Engineering Design Education
website
http://www.gdvdz.comDr. Georgia Van de Zande seeks to combine a global understanding with user-centered product design and mechanical engineering to create impact.
She has conducted fieldwork in seven countries, and her research has given her perspective on how we can realize a world in which engineering serves everyone. Georgia joins Olin from MIT Mechanical Engineering. For her Ph.D., Georgia designed a tool that aimed to bring the water- and energy-efficiency benefits of precision agriculture to resource-constrained farms. Georgia is passionate about engineering and design education. She finds crafting the learning experience to be an exciting design challenge in itself. When she’s not in the lab or classroom, she might be swimming, skiing, learning a new process in the shop, or sewing plushie toys.