Onan Demirel is an Associate Professor (Reader) in Engineering Design in the Department of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management (DMEM) at the University of Strathclyde. He earned his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University, where he also completed his B.S. (Honors) and M.S. degrees. Prior to joining Strathclyde, he was a faculty member in Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University, where he served as Director of the D-HUB Laboratory and as a Principal Investigator at the Design Engineering Lab, one of the largest academic mechanical engineering design research laboratories in the United States. He is a recipient of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Exceptional Global Talent endorsement, a nationally peer-reviewed distinction recognizing sustained international research leadership in engineering.

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Onan’s research bridges design science, human factors, and systems engineering to integrate human needs, behaviors, and constraints into complex engineered systems. He develops human-centered design, modeling, and simulation frameworks that support prediction, evaluation, and decision-making in early-stage system design, with a focus on human performance, behavior, safety, and well-being at scale.

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A central focus of his work is digital human modeling and human-in-the-loop simulation, integrating VR/AR, AI, motion capture, and empirical human data to evaluate human performance well before physical systems are built. These methods enable designers to embed human performance, workload, ergonomic risk, and safety directly into engineering design and manufacturing workflows, supporting more robust and human-aware system development. His research has addressed challenges such as human variability in product and system design, operator workload in safety-critical systems, and early failure-mode identification, earning recognition, including the ASME IDETC–CIE Best Paper Award.

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Onan has led interdisciplinary research programs supported by U.S. federal agencies, international sponsors, and industry partners, and has published more than 65 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals and conferences, including the Journal of Mechanical Design, the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, and the Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering. He serves on international technical and scientific committees in digital human modeling and human-centered design, including ASME IDETC–CIE, HCII, and related DHM venues.