Elizabeth Reuter

As a native Midwesterner, I have just finished my undergraduate degree in Industrial Design at Purdue University. I have always loved art and design, drawing before I could walk, but also appreciated how things work from an engineering point of view.

After three years of engineering classes in high school, alongside two to three art classes a semester, I found out about ID. Thanks to a wonderful advisor, I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I am enthralled with Industrial Design because it is a way to use my artistic skills and pragmatic mechanical point of view to help others, communicate with the world and create meaningful products.

Through design schooling, I discovered the works of Henry Petroski and Donald Norman and their work in emphatic and human centered design. I fell in love with the principals and reasoning of both and have decided to pursue a Graduate degree at the University of Illinois in emphatic design. I hope to graduate with a full arsenal of why people interact and respond the way they do to products, and carry it with me wherever I am led— the future is endless with possibilities! Wherever I go, I will strive to build a better relationship between people and their products.

I love animals, horticulture, and biology to an absurd degree. I am an avid home cook and love to experiment with cultural foods. I have longed to travel and experience the world from different perspectives. The few tastes of travel I have experienced have only begun to whet my appetite and I believe that it could better inform me about the world I live in and who I am designing for.