Raelin Musuraca

For more than 30 years, Raelin Sawka Musuraca has worked at the intersection of human-centered design, product strategy, and organizational decision-making, helping businesses uncover meaningful insights, reduce product risk, and create technology that better serves people and organizations.

Raelin is currently an Associate Teaching Professor and Director of the Master of Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) program. Her work focuses on aligning HCI education and practice more closely with the realities of today's product development. Through curriculum leadership, pedagogical innovation, and industry collaboration, she helps students develop critical thinking, strategic reasoning, and empathic skills alongside a strong methods-based foundation, so that as professionals, they can conduct research that uncovers deeper behavioral and motivational insights while also clearly articulating the business value of that understanding.

Her recent pedagogical work explores how HCI methods can evolve from procedural frameworks into more adaptive, risk-based approaches to innovation and decision-making. This includes Assumption Artifacts, a framework that helps students and practitioners identify hidden assumptions, rapidly test ideas, reduce costly downstream failures, and make more informed product decisions under real-world constraints.

Prior to joining Carnegie Mellon, Raelin led UX research, strategy, and digital innovation efforts at BNY Mellon, American Eagle Outfitters, and her digital consultancy, Sharp Creative, where she worked with organizations across the healthcare, financial, industrial, retail, and consumer product sectors.