Rachel Dzombak

Dr. Rachel Dzombak is a strategist, researcher, and educator. Her work is focused at the intersection of innovation, emerging technology, and public sector impact. She currently serves as Sr. Innovation Advisor and Adjunct Faculty Heinz College of Public Policy and Information Systems at Carnegie Mellon University. In her work with Heinz, she teaches about the intersection of AI and innovation, advises on the future of education, and supports an array of initiatives to drive responsible AI adoption within government. At CMU, Dzombak has taught design, innovation, and systems thinking within the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, at the Tepper School of Business, and within the College of Engineering. She previously was a Technical Director and Lead of Digital Transformation within CMU’s Software Engineering Institute AI Division, where she led efforts to define the field of AI engineering.

Dzombak is the founder of Outcome x Design, a consultancy that supports people and organizations to solve problems that matter. Through Outcome, she advises public and private sector organizations on adoption of AI, digital transformation, and implementing innovation processes. The work of Outcome spans multiple industries including defense, higher education, construction, and healthcare.

Prior to CMU, Dzombak was a Professional Faculty and Innovation Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, she led the development of an executive education program for the DoD’s National Security Innovation Network and delivered innovation training at over 20 military bases around the U.S. She additionally led curricular design and program development for Berkeley’s Master’s in Development Engineering, a program aimed at leveraging engineering skillsets and mindsets to address problems in low-resource settings. Dzombak additionally co-founded a preventative medicine company in Nyeri, Kenya.

Dzombak completed her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of California, Berkeley. She did a postdoctoral fellowship on teaming and innovation at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Dzombak also holds a BS from Penn State University in Bioengineering.