Bruce Ankenman has been a Professor of Industrial Engineering at Northwestern University for 30 years. In the 1980s as a design engineer in the automotive industry, Bruce found that an engineer's job depends on the ability to collect and analyze data. His research focused on developing simple-to-use, statistically powerful tools for the design and analysis of physical and simulation-based experiments.

In 2004, shifting his focus to design education, Bruce led the first-year design course for 17 years and co-directed the Segal Design Institute for 15 years.  There he led the undergraduate curriculum consisting of project-based design courses with external clients. In 2016, Bruce co-developed a very popular course for Northwestern with Pam Daniels called “Designing Your Life”.  Over the years, the course has drawn over 1500 juniors and seniors from every school at Northwestern and elicits praise from them like, “This class is by far the best I have taken at Northwestern” and “The class is about how to improve yourself as a person, and now to spread that self–improvement to those around you.”

In 2022, Bruce and Joe Holtgreive co-founded The Northwestern Personal Development StudioLab to enhance the personal development of undergraduate students at Northwestern.