About the Contributors

Rudy Ruggles

Collaborative Innovation Services, LLC

Rudy Ruggles is the President of Collaborative Innovation Services, LLC, a consultancy helping organizations use the tools and principles of sustainability to create innovative solutions to strategic and organizational challenges. His work combines his 20 years of professional experience working with clients in multiple industries to enhance their organizational learning, knowledge management, and innovation capabilities with his expertise in environmentally and social responsible business practices, particularly as they apply to product design and development.

Along with his client work in this area and an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, he has earned a Certificate in Sustainable Design from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design.

Asheen Phansey

DS SolidWorks Corporation

Asheen Phansey joined SolidWorks in 2010 as product manager for SolidWorks Sustainability and all-around sustainability advocate for the company. His expertise in nature-inspired design, product lifecycle stewardship, closed-loop business models, and green marketing has been built through a career in technology, business and academia.

Asheen travels widely speaking on sustainable innovation around the world and teaches MBA courses in Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Green Marketing as an Adjunct Professor at Babson College. Prior to SolidWorks, Asheen founded the consultancy Quaking Aspen to help companies develop sustainable innovation toolkits, building on his years of innovation experience in the biotech, software, and aerospace industries.

Asheen holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Babson College, and has received a certificate in nature-inspired design from the Biomimicry Institute.

Benjamin Linder

Olin College of Engineering

Dr. Benjamin Linder is an Associate Professor of Design and Mechanical Engineering at Olin College of Engineering, where his teaching and research efforts are focused on sustainable design, international development, human centered design and creative design methods. These efforts are directed at developing techniques and approaches that further a more ecologically connected and socially informed design practice.

As an experienced teacher and practitioner of product design, Linder regularly advises and delivers workshops for practitioners, educators and the Public. He is a co-organizer of the International Development Design Summit that brings people together from over 20 countries to build local, creative design capacity.

Dr. Linder received a B.S.E. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan where he studied engineering design with Professor Panos Papalambros. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he studied product design and design education with Professor Woodie Flowers.