Design Cognition, Cognitive Diversity & AI Teammates with Kathryn Jablokow

Kathryn Jablokow. Dean of Manhattan University’s School of Engineering, former NSF deputy division director, and co-author of the NSF Artificial Intelligence Roadmap joins Aidan McCullen to explore design cognition: how people think while solving design problems. 

They unpack why high-performance teams don’t just match skills to problems, but also match thinking styles to the type of challenge, plus how great facilitators make space for different contributors (including introverts who need time to reflect). 

The conversation then turns to AI as a teammate: how to avoid “sycophant” answers, how to prompt AI to generate genuinely different perspectives, and what it could look like to train LLMs to emulate cognitive diversity for better decisions and more creative outcomes.

Find Kathryn's papers:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marybethgasman/2025/12/30/what-ai-cant-replace-and-why-that-matters/

https://www.techradar.com/pro/how-applying-cognitive-diversity-to-llms-could-transform-the-user-experience