Fellow:Aubrey Wigner

Serving as a UIF Since: Spring 2015

School: Graduated from Arizona State University

What he does now: Assistant Professor at Michigan State University

What that means: He teaches entrepreneurship to students from all majors across MSU and helps turn ideas into reality.

Contact him about: Understanding issues at the border of science and technology, building out a makerspace, getting serious feedback on your entrepreneurial ideas.

Email: aubrey.wigner@gmail.com

Aubrey joined the University Innovation Fellows halfway through his PhD in Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology at Arizona State University. Now, he works as an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University where he teaches, and develops courses for, the Minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. This cross disciplinary minor is open to all students from all majors and emphasizes deep engagement and hands on practices through, among other things, Design Thinking, improvisation, and Making. In this role, he helps people identify problems and explore solutions in a creative and hands on manner. His real top-secret mission though is to enable students to think about the world in a critical and empathic manner with a focus on creating a more just and equitable future for all.

His dissertation explored the role of the Maker Movement in higher education and how Making might provide a path forward to prepare students for a technologically complex future with increasing automation and computer/human interactions. As a bio-chemical engineer turned social scientist, he enjoyed diving deep into the intersection between technology and society. He is also an avid tinkerer himself who plays with 3D design, rapid prototyping tools, and a bit too much DIY home remodeling. During his time as a fellow, he helped run Making and Tinkering camps for middle school students and pitched a new design space for ASU's main library, a variant of which will be built in 2019.

Feel free to reach out to him with any questions you might have on building makerspaces, exploring entrepreneurial ideas, or integrating Design Thinking and Improv into your education ecosystem.