Dr.ir. Katrin Eling is a tenured Assistant Professor of New Product Development in the Innovation, Technology Entrepreneurship & Marketing (ITEM) Group at Eindhoven University of Technology  (TU/e). Her key areas of expertise include creativity, decision making and sustainability in innovation and new product development.

Katrin's research focuses on the management of the so-called "front end" of innovation with a special interest in decision making during the creative process of idea generation and concept development, decision making for environmentally, socially and economically more sustainable new products and customer / citizen involvement in this messy "getting started" phase as well as the management of the front end in innovation ecosystems. Her dissertation research has challenged the utility of two established new product development principles for successful front end management. 

Katrin holds an MSc in Strategic Product Design from Delft University of Technology (NL) and a Diploma in Industrial Design from the University of Wuppertal, Germany. In 2014 Katrin obtained her PhD in the ITEM Group at TU/e. Katrin's dissertation was awarded with the Beta PhD Award 2015 by the Beta Research School for Operations Management and Logistics. Her dissertation proposal was named the winner of the 2011 Dissertation Proposal Competition of the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) and was among the finalists of the 2011 Business Marketing Doctoral Support Award Competition of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM). Before pursuing an academic career, Katrin gained practical experiences in the field of Industrial Design.  

Katrin is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Product Innovation Management. One of her articles was awarded with the Christer Karlsson Best Paper Award at the Innovation and Product Development Management Conference 2017 and another article was Runner-up for the 2013 Student Best Paper Award of the College of Product Innovation and Technology Management of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS). Katrin’s work has been published mainly in the Journal of Product Innovation Management as well as in Creativity and Innovation Management, and in the International Journal of Market Research. She is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Technology and Innovation Management at Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, Germany.