Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Campbell, Jenn

Committee Member

Jensen, David

Abstract

Stakeholder engagement is a critically important yet overlooked phase of engineering design. While addressing stakeholders is known to lead to more thoughtful design outcomes, little work has been done regarding how stakeholder personas influence brain activity while designing. This study asks if the introduction of stakeholder personas- short overviews of people affected by a design problem- affects brain activation in undergraduate students during three design tasks: stakeholder identification, stakeholder needs generation, and stakeholder needs prioritization. To test this, 18 undergraduate mechanical engineering students were given a stormwater management design vignette; one group was given four stakeholder personas, while the control group did not receive any personas. Both groups were then asked to identify stakeholders, generate stakeholder needs, and prioritize stakeholder needs. During this, brain activity was assessed using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The results revealed significantly different oxygenated hemoglobin levels during the first 30 seconds of stakeholder identification for the full prefrontal cortex, and the frontopolar and ventrolateral subregions. The activation in the frontopolar prefrontal cortex suggests increased retrospective monitoring and exploratory decision-making, while the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activation suggests cognitive reappraisal and the integration of new information during the problem framing stage. There were no significant differences during the other two design tasks, however the activation in the treatment group remained almost consistently higher. These findings contribute to the nascent field of design neurocognition by exploring the impact of stakeholder personas on brain activation of a working designer and set the foundation for further research. Through a more complete evaluation of the collected design artifacts and cognitive metrics, the design quality resulting from the introduction of stakeholder personas can be assessed.

Keywords

Neurocognition; Personas; Engineering design

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