Department Mentors

Dr. Stephen B. Gilbert is an Engineering Entrepreneurial Fellow and faculty in the Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering department. He is also Associate Director of Iowa State University’s VRAC, an emerging technologies research center, and Director of its Human Computer Interaction graduate program. His research interests focus on technology to augment cognition, human-autonomy teaming, and XR cybersickness. He received a BSE from Princeton in civil engineering and operations research and a PhD from MIT in brain and cognitive sciences. He has worked closely with John Deere, Boeing, Raytheon, and other industry, along with NSF and DoD on research contracts.

In the 1990s, shortly after the web arrived, Dr. Gilbert joined a startup in Chicago focused on creating online courseware pre-YouTube. He was the 40th employee, and one year later during those dot-com boom days, there were 400+ employees. As the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s and the Chicago company shrank, he started his own software company in Ames, IA using SBIR Phase 1 and 2 funding, bringing ISU students to the Research Park. In 2007, he joined academia at Iowa State, where he currently views the job of professor as much like running a small business with temporary employees called students.

Dr. Gilbert has judged a variety of business pitch contests, mentored students in entrepreneurial efforts, and frequently asks pitching students to make sure he understands why he should care about their product.