Nseke Ngilbus - Human-Centered Business and Design
After graduating, Nseke joined his dream company, IDEO, as a Design Researcher, where he worked on projects that spanned nonprofits, tech, and media. Those experiences gave him the chance to see how design could push boundaries and create impact for communities that often go unheard. Coming from Oakland and navigating spaces where Black voices are underrepresented, he carried with him the perspective that good design isn’t just about products—it’s about equity, access, and dignity.
Over time, he wanted to strengthen the quantitative side of my toolkit, so he returned to community college to dive deeper into data science and even taught Data 8. That experience reminded him that representation matters in every classroom—students benefit from seeing someone who looks like them leading at the intersection of design and data. Eventually, he returned to UC Berkeley through the MIMS program, bringing together design and data to tackle complex sociotechnical problems with a focus on inclusivity and real-world impact.
Area of Concentration Courses
Public Health 199 - Supervised Independent Study and Research
Industrial Engineering and Operations Research 186 - Product Managemen
Information Systems and Management 114 - User Experience Research
Public Health 188 - Fung Fellowship Seminar
Thesis
Self-Efficacy and Design Thinking
This thesis explores how confidence and belief in one’s own abilities influence success in design thinking education. Drawing on Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy, Nseke examined how mastery experiences, social persuasion, vicarious experiences, and emotional states affect students’ learning of human-centered design. Using mixed-methods research with the Fung Fellowship, he found that students exposed to design thinking—through coursework, hackathons, or personal projects—develop stronger self-efficacy and report higher confidence in ambiguous, iterative problem-solving tasks. He argues that year-long, structured design curricula are essential for cultivating students’ confidence and helping them internalize design thinking as a skill set. Ultimately, his work highlights how building self-efficacy transforms design thinking from an ambiguous field into an accessible practice that empowers diverse learners to see themselves as designers.
