Service Designer | Johnson Controls, Inc.
Lauren Dern is the Service Designer at Johnson Controls, Inc. where she develops holistic solutions enabling customers’ success and utilizing comprehensive design thinking tools.
Previously she was Senior Product Designer at Schoeneck Containers, Inc., where she started the industrial design department. At SCI, she advocated and brought design to this manufacturing industry, with attention to the entire product lifecycle, additive manufacturing practices, and design strategy, creating innovative patented solutions, brand recognition and value-added design services.
With over eight years of experience in the design field, Dern graduated from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) with a BFA in industrial design, a minor in Interior Architecture and Design. She has Executive training in Managing Product Design and Development from Northwestern University, and Human Centered Service Design Certificate from IDEO.
Lauren continues to support education in critical thinking of students in pursuit of their design education. She regularly visits design colleges to speak, project and portfolio reviews, judge for student merit awards and mentoring students.
Dern has served on the board of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) and IDSA Northern Lakes Chapter, with a career-long commitment to IDSA. As Chapter Chair of IDSA NL, she hopes to continue to bring the value she has gained through networking and events to strengthen the design community.
Special interests in environmental and social change, designing for sustainability and inclusivity from early education to executive leadership.
As Chair of IDSA-Northern Lakes in 2020, Lauren Dern, IDSA led a committed team of volunteers and set a shining example for all other IDSA professional chapters to follow. The virtual events that IDSA-NL has hosted this year and the resources they have provided, especially after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis this summer, have inspired the ID community—especially at IDSA—to speak out against racial injustice, not only in our local communities but in industrial design as a profession and in the design industry at large. In the IDSA-NL virtual event “Racial Barriers & Breakthroughs,” Kirk Morris and Le’Spencer Walker shared their experiences as Black men and designers navigating the systemic inequities and subconscious biases they’ve encountered throughout their careers.
“2020 has been a challenging year for many,” Lauren says, citing “the shift to work-and-life-at-home, fear of the virus, and anger at the system that has perpetuated inequality” as motivating factors for her strong leadership in action this year. “However, there have been some wonderful things that have happened in response to these challenges” she adds. “I wasn’t sure what to expect when I asked this team of designers to join me on the Northern Lakes chapter, but they have been invigorating to work with. Through honesty, respect, and a lot of humor, they have become an inspiring support to get through the lows of 2020 and celebrate the highs. I have learned so much from them and look forward to how we will push each other and grow in 2021.”
Lauren says she’s also had the privilege to make meaningful connections with many more designers in 2020, and in a new way, that probably never would have happened without virtual programming. “I have learned to be more empathetic though the greatest challenges this year,” she continues. “I still have the fight in me, but now it is composed in a more constructive and kinder way.”
As for what’s next, Lauren and IDSA-Northern Lakes are looking forward to building on all they’ve accomplished in 2020, “and hopefully meeting some designers in-person later in 2021!”
