Dr. Egmond, R. van

René van Egmond is associate professor of Cognitive Ergonomics at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. His expertise lies in the fields of Product Sound Design & Perception and Informational Ergonomics.

Academic Background

René van Egmond is an Associate Professor at the Department of Industrial Design. His expertise lies in the fields of Product Sound Design & Perception and Informational Ergonomics.

Rene has a background in musical acoustics, and cognitive science. From 2000 onward he started setting up a research line to enhance our understanding in the experience of product sounds. He distinguishes two main topics: Embodied Audio Design and Interactive Audio Design. In Embodied Audio \design, sounds are the consequence of the working mechanisms of a product are improved by changing the embodiment of products. The experience of sound and trying to envision this experience leads, also for students, to a better understanding of the working mechanisms of a product. Interactive Audio Design deals with the premis that proper sound design only results if one understands the (bodily) interaction between users in information environments (infoscapes).

This latter line of research resulted in a different focus of the research of René. His research is now focussed on the understanding how people process information streams in complex environments and how people process this information and deal with this complexity. This resulted in modelling Human Information Processes and trying to map these processes onto technical solutions (Technical Information Processes). In this way similarities and differences between human and technical sensor processing can be identified and which is senorial/sensor information information is needed in Artificial Intelligent systems to produce proper feedback or action by the system. This knowledge is now used in projects how sensor information can inform people or organizations on sustainability issues (2nd SKIN-scalar project) and projects on Automated Driving  (Horizon 2020, Mediator, Ford AI design for the future).

Education

• 1996
  PhD dissertation:  Perceived similarity of transformed melodies
  Radboud University Nijmegen

Experience

• 1999 - 2000
  Partime (.2) lecturer, research methodology & techniques
   Radboud University
• 1997 - 2000
  Post-doc on a individual grant from the Dutch Science foundation (NWO)
   Radboud University
• 1996 - 1997
  Postdoctoral fellow
  The Ohio State University, USA
• 1992 - 1996
  PhD student, Nijmegen Institute for Cognition & Information (now, FC Donders Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience)
  Radboud Unversity

Specialisation/Field of research

• Product Sound Design & Perception
• Interaction design
• Research methodologies for design
• Sonic branding

Lectures/Coaches students on

• Embodied audio design
• Interactive audio design
• Research methodology & statistics
• Academic writing

Involved in the research project(s):