ABOUT
I am a deep generalist.
My work focuses on understanding and creating innovative cultures that make impact in diverse cultural settings. Effective creation and stewardship of trans-disciplinary/cross-cultural design teams requires mastery of design on a meta-level as well as insight into specific cultural contexts.
My professional and academic experience includes working with, facilitating and teaching teams from the around the globe in a wide spectrum of domains including Product Service System Design, User Experience, Interaction Design, Business Innovation, Digital Transformation and Digital Health Design.
Lasting and effective instantiation of innovative communities is holistic and depends on mixing the correct amalgam of objects, behaviours and narratives that enable rewarding engagement and informed risk taking for an organisation and its members.
My professional practice has encompassed lighting design, interaction design and programming, product-service-system design, digital health design, painting, speaking, teaching, advising and consulting.
My expertise is in creating a bridge between cutting edge design theory and day-to-day practice by providing design teams with tested conceptual frameworks and physical tools for ideation, prototyping and empirical testing. Polymath, Iconoclast, Classicist and Lover of Pop Culture, I engage and inspire diverse communities to think outside the box, to reach and deliver far beyond expectations.
My formal studies encompass training in music composition and performance, classical and modern dance, theatre, martial arts, ancient greek, mathematics, philosophy, screen writing, programming, interaction design, product design, integrated design and manufacture, design theory and methodology, business and mechanical engineering.
My work is to integrate these seemingly disparate vectors of theory and practice into dynamic relationships to explore in order to create compelling user experiences and solve complex problems in diverse fields.
I keep the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles as well as Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon on hand to keep me linguistically challenged and the informed invention of new words:
new words facilitate the exploration and formation of new ways of seeing, experiencing and acting on our perceptual horizons.
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, Design Theory and Methodology,
Stanford University (2011)
Summer Institute for Entrepreneurship, Graduate School of Business,
Stanford University (2009)
Master of Fine Arts, (Product Design), Stanford University (2006)
Screen Writing, American Film Institute (1997)
Bachelor of Arts, Mathematics and Philosophy, St. John’s College, Annapolis (1983)
Performance and Composition, Boston University School of Music (1976-1977)
AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Design Thinking Research Program Fellow, Hasso Plattner Foundation (2008 – 2011)
GlaxoSmithKline Fellow, Stanford Graduate School of Business,
Summer Institute for Entrepreneurship (2009)
Charles Sayler Award in Design (Stanford University, 2006)
Member of the National Judo Team, Colorado Springs, Colorado (1993)
Shodan (Black Belt), National Judo Institute Colorado Springs, Colorado (1992)
Judo Instructor, National Judo Institute (1993)
Truman Scholarship Nominee, St. John's College, Annapolis (1982)
Gutman Award for Academic Achievement, St. John's College, Annapolis (1981)
Peterson Award for Academic Achievement, St. John's College, Annapolis (1980)
Young Artist, Tanglewood Institute (1976)
Greater Boston Youth Symphony, String Bass (1975)
I am pleased to report that I am still learning.
MEDIA COVERAGE
Design Conference Brandenburg, Interview https://designkonferenz-brandenburg.de/archiv/archiv-designkonferenz-2018/referenten-2018/jonathan-edelman/
Understanding Radical Breaks, Blog Post http://blog.rwth-aachen.de/designthinking/2016/01/20/summary-understanding-radical-breaks-by-j-edelman/
RCA Appoints Dr Jonathan Edelman, News http://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/rca-appoints-jonathan-antonio-edelman-head-global-innovation-design/
Creative Partnerships, News https://www.exeter.edu/exeter_bulletin/12984_17248.aspx
The New Face of Design, Cover Story, Palo Alto Weekly, April 21, 2006
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/print/edition/2006/04/21
Rai Italia, News Program, March 14, 2014
http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-360d978c-98e2-4f4e-ab44-d522cc9367ab.html#p=0
The Paris Tech Review, http://www.paristechreview.com/2010/11/02/power-prototyping/
http://www.paristechreview.com/2010/11/02/power-prototyping/