adrian tan

[from planet Earth, son of a Chinese-Malaysian father and Danish mother]

After graduating from my M.Sc. in mechanical engineering, I worked as a mechanical engineering designer and product development consultant at IPU and Radius. During this time I enjoyed applying my engineering design skills and experiencing how my ideas evolved into physical artefacts that could be bought in stores around the world. But after 4 years and numerous projects for many different companies such as Bang & Olufsen, LEGO, Novo Nordisk and Nokia, I was being to feel the routine of things. Each project from idea to market was a tremendous collaborative development effort and required thousands of man-hours. Although each project was exciting and the resulting product innovative in its own way, at the end of the day it was just another product that was incrementally better than the thousands that came before. Considering the amount of effort put in each project I had the feeling much more could be done and greater advances made than just spitting yet another product out on the market.

I was therefore thrilled to get the chance to return back to the ‘school bench’ and student life at DTU to study what lies beyond the development of products. I am therefore eternally grateful to my supervisor, Associate Professor Tim McAloone, for this opportunity and all the support I have received throughout the years. Besides the research topic itself the opportunity to work with Professor Mogens Myrup Andreasen was decisive when I had to figure out if I was ready to say goodbye to a well-paid job. Although perplexing I have greatly appreciated his inspiring ‘critical enthusiasm’ and wry comments to everyday life! I cannot imagine doing a PhD without him as my cosupervisor.

Today, I work in an environmental consultancy in Paris trying to find solutions to a society based on sustainable consumption and production. See some of my projects here.