Professional Faculty
Innovation & Design
Innovation and Design
About
Vivek Rao is a lecturer at Berkeley Haas, where he teaches human-centered design, foresight, and innovation methods to MBA and EWMBA students. In addition to his work at Haas, he also teaches graduate and undergraduate courses at UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering in the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation. His early-stage innovation and R&D experience spans products, services, organizational transformation, and infrastructure. During his PhD study in Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley, his research won multiple industry and academic awards. He also worked in Process Research and Development at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Wastewater Enterprise. Before his PhD, he worked as a designer and strategist at IDEO, where he helped Fortune 500 clients innovate in sectors ranging from pharmaceuticals to furniture.
Expertise and Research Interests
- Human-centered Design
- R&D
- Emerging Technologies
At Haas since 2019
2019 – present, Lecturer, Haas School of Business
2018 – present, UC Berkeley College of Engineering
2018 – present, Trainee, Wastewater Process Engineering R&D, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
2017 – 2018, Graduate Student Instructor, UC Berkeley
2011 – 2018 Fulbright Scholar Researcher, Technical University of Vienna, Austria
2009 – 2010 Designer and Strategist, IDEO, 2007-2009
- Berkeley Arts and Design Teaching Fellowship, UC Berkeley
- 2019 NSF iCorps Award
- 2016 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, UC Berkeley
- 2014 Fulbright Scholarship
- MBA 200P: Fundamentals of Design Thinking
- EWMBA 200P: Fundamentals of Design Thinking