Travis Lee
Future City 1995
MYA Middle School, Ann Arbor, Michigan

EDUCATION: B.Sci., mechanical engineering, University of Minnesota Institute of Technology, Minneapolis

CURRENTLY: Engineer at IDEO, Inc. in Chicago, an international design consultancy, specializing in health and medical devices.

I relocated to Chicago last year to work for IDEO, an international design consultancy corporation.  IDEO helps organizations in the business, government, education, and social sectors innovate through design.  The company has contributed to the design and development of many standard-setting innovations, including the first mouse (for Apple Computer) and the world’s first notebook computer (for GriD Computer).  Other noted product successes include the Palm V, the Handspring Treo, Polaroid’s I-Zone instant camera, Zyliss kitchen tools, and Oral-B’s soft-grip kids’ toothbrushes.

My education is in mechanical engineering and I work as an engineer at IDEO.  However, we have a broad interdisciplinary approach to design, so I often find myself wearing other hats as a model builder, designer, human factors researcher, etc.  I maintain a keen interest in health and fortunately I still do a lot of work having to do with health and medical devices, since many of our clients work in that realm.