Michael Peng
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Administration


Mike Peng is the Human Factors Lead out of IDEO's New York City office. His passion for understanding the hopes and desires of real people has helped teams design products, services, and experiences that truly consider and compliment the user. Since starting at IDEO in 2006, Mike has led the design research efforts in industries ranging from education and hospitality to financial services and consumer electronics.

To keep IDEO Human Factors on the cutting edge, Mike has been experimenting with new methods of inspiration-gathering and storytelling that push the discipline further. In order to get into the headspace of the true comic book fan, Mike read over 1000 comics cover-to-cover and attended Comic-con, the world¹s largest comic book convention. To better understand women¹s relationship with perfume, Mike ³bottled-up² each person¹s scent he spoke with and used their smell, instead of their photo, to speak about the lives of these women.

Prior to IDEO, Mike graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Cognitive Science and an emphasis on Neuroscience. He then joined Johnson & Johnson and rotated between the medical device and pharmaceutical sectors, working on a number of initiatives that included global strategy, user interface design, laboratory informatics, and process excellence. He also received his green belt certification in Design from Six Sigma.