Dr Ross Brisco

Lecturer

Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management

Contact

Personal statement

Ross is a Lecturer at the Department of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management. Ross's research interests include; Computer-Supported Collaborative Design, Design Engineering Education, Novel collaborative technologies including Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality to support design, Strategic Technology Selection, Product Design, Development and Realisation. 

Ross is responsible for the Design 1, Design 2, Design methods and Management and the Postgraduate Individual Projects classes in the department. 

Ross is the DMEM 1st-year advisor of studies and the Social Media champion and Student Industry Projects champion within the department. 

Ross has been a member of the Design Society since 2015 and sits as chair of the Design Education Special Interest Group and Early Career Chair Collaborative Design Special Interest Group in workshop facilitation, strategic planning and conference organisation (E&PDE conference series). In 2023 Ross was elected by members of the Design Society to join the Advisory Board. In 2025 he was elected as deputy chair. He is one of 27 members who advises, guides and supports the Board of Management in developing and furthering the aim and objectives of the Society. 

Ross is a member of the IED sitting on the Education and Training Committee, and has been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy - Advance HE since 2021.  

He has developed and conducted CPD courses on Strategic Technology Selection for the engineering sector in Scotland with NMIS

Ross current work includes: 

  • Guest Editor for the Design Science Journal Thematic Collection on Design Education.
  • E&PDE 2026 conference organiser, presenter, session chair & panel host.  
  • Scientific Advisory Board member (within past 2 years) for the ICED, DESIGN, ICoRD and E&PDE conferences.
  • Peer Reviewer (within past 12 months) for the International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation, Bentham Science Publishers, Design Science Journal, Owl Press (borgerhoff-lamberigts), International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, Design, Technology Education: An International Journal, Designing, AI EDAM, AI and Society, and Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 

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Publications

Assessing the understanding of intellectual property implications of AI use in product design undergraduates
Holliman Alexander "Freddie", Brisco Ross, Gunn Kieran
Proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE 2025) 27th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE), pp. 421-426 (2025)
https://doi.org/10.35199/EPDE.2025.71
Vision Impairment in Virtual Reality Study : Participant View
Grech Amy, Wodehouse Andrew, Brisco Ross
(2025)
https://doi.org/10.17868/strath.00094058
Towards a new understanding: building a shared mental model for design teams
Edgecomb Ian, Brisco Ross, Wodehouse Andrew
Proceedings of the Design Society Vol 5, pp. 3131-3140 (2025)
https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2025.10327
A comparative analysis of synchronous and asynchronous computer-supported collaborative design
Maxwell Harris, Brisco Ross
Proceedings of the Design Society Vol 5, pp. 11-20 (2025)
https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2025.10015
Artificial Intelligence in engineering design : an industry perspective
Edgecomb Ian, Brisco Ross, Gunn Kieran, Holliman Freddie
Proceedings of the Design Society Vol 5, pp. 641-650 (2025)
https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2025.10078
D-LAD - a framework for project-based design assessment : educators’ insights
Dekoninck Elies, Brisco Ross, Mattioli Francesca, Bohemia Erik, Ndiaye Yakhoub, Grierson Hilary, Krauss Gordon
DS 137: Proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE 2025) 27th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education Proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education, pp. 577-582 (2025)
https://doi.org/10.35199/EPDE.2025.97

More publications

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Professional Activities

Engineering Academics Network (EAN) Annual Congress
Organiser
17/6/2026
Designing (Journal)
Peer reviewer
26/9/2025
25th International Conference on Engineering Design
Participant
11/8/2025
How can we define success of a shared mental model in collaborative engineering design teams
Chair
11/8/2025
Horizon Europe - University of Strathclyde & University of Waterloo Working Group (Event)
Member
22/7/2025
Engineering Pedagogy & Scholarship Workshop
Participant
24/6/2025

More professional activities

Projects

Standard Innovation Student Voucher: Orchy MG Ltd
Brisco, Ross (Principal Investigator)
25-Jan-2025 - 24-Jan-2025
Standard Innovation Voucher: The Invisible Brand
Brisco, Ross (Principal Investigator)
22-Jan-2025 - 18-Jan-2025
NMIS Internship: The Human-Machine Partnership: AI for Sustainable Engineering Processes
Brisco, Ross (Principal Investigator) McLaughlin, Graeme (Principal Investigator) Johnson, Isaac (Researcher)
An affordance is a design intention that guides user behaviour. It allows a designer to understand how to interact with an object or system. In the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and engineering design, AI affords a designer with greater data visualisations, design optimisations, predictive maintenance and smart products. Affordances bridge the gap between technical capabilities and practical user behaviour. By making AI technologies intuitive, transparent, and empowering, we can unlock their potential to drive a transition towards a circular economy, where resources are used efficiently, and waste is minimised.

As engineering designers begin to explore the potential of AI, they provide examples of appropriate and inappropriate use of AI throughout the design process. This project will work with established data sets, and company contacts in industry to build an understanding of the the state-of-the-art knowledge of engineering industry on the use of AI. Through the lens of sustainable engineering practices, which themselves have a vast dataset of standards and requirements, the Intern will be challenged with simplifying the design for sustainability process using AI. This may come in the form of guidance, or a prototype tool to demonstrate the possibilities.
02-Jan-2025 - 22-Jan-2025
Digital Dairy Chain Innovation Voucher: Visualising Dairy Value Chains
Brisco, Ross (Principal Investigator) Holliman, Freddie (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2025 - 31-Jan-2025
Digital Dairy Chain Innovation Voucher: Encouraging careers in dairy through digital STEM activities
Brisco, Ross (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2025 - 30-Jan-2025
Digital Dairy Chain Innovation Voucher: Cow shed design optimisation
Wong, Andy TC (Principal Investigator) Brisco, Ross (Co-investigator)
The company, Boreland Farming Partnership, currently operates a 40-year old cow shed accommodating more than 200 cows. Due to evolution in business requirements and market landscape, a number of bottlenecks have been identified impacting the well-being of both cows and staff, hence hinder the efficiency as well as the strategic growth of the business. The current dairyman will be retiring and a new one will be hired, along with other staff on rotation. A new shed is being planned to replace the old one and so this collaboration was formed.

This project, hence, aims to improve the shed design by resolving the bottlenecks while meeting the requirements/needs of both cows and staff. In order to achieve the aim, a number of objectives is listed below:
1. Examine the key functions/areas of the current shed layout
2. Define key requirements of cows and staff
3. Identify major bottlenecks and define/measure the efficiency of the current shed layout
4. Model a new shed layout to meet all major requirements and restrictions (space, resource, etc)

The key outcome of this project will be a prototype version of the simulation model that can evaluate the efficiency of the shed layout under different operational requirements and constraints. It is believed that this model can help to demonstrate a new capability to the organisation in designing the best shed layout fulfilling the current and future demand.
01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2025

More projects

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Contact

Dr Ross Brisco
Lecturer
Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management

Email: ross.brisco@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 574 5294