Chris Kasabach

Class Year: CFA'91

Major: Industrial Design

Sport: Men's Soccer

Term of Service: 2017

Chris is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon's School of Design. As a senior he was captain of the men's soccer team and student-athlete of the year. Following graduation in 1991, Chris led the creation of the university's first wearable technology program, grown from his senior thesis work. Developed within Carnegie Mellon's Engineering Design Research Center (EDRC), the program, Vū Man, evolved into the EDRC's Mobile and Wearable Computing lab which he later co-directed. In the late-nineties Chris co-founded Sandbox Advanced Development with three Carnegie Mellon alumni and together they grew the company into BodyMedia Inc. a wearable health technology pioneer that was acquired by Jawbone in 2013. Chris's work has been featured in the Smithsonian/Cooper-Hewitt Museum and received two international design excellence gold awards.

Chris is the Executive Director of the Watson Foundation a New York-based foundation that provides students with life-changing cultural, professional and personal opportunities to expand their vision and develop their individual potential. He holds an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School and is on the board of Winterhouse Institute, a national non-profit that works with educators to apply design to large scale social issues. Chris and his wife Vanessa, also a graduate of Carnegie Mellon, have two children who provide countless forms of continuous education.