Irene Carbonell
Lecturer
Contact Information
Email: icarbone@calpoly.edu
Phone: 805-756-1746
Irene Carbonell serves as Lecturer of Industrial Technology and Packaging in Orfalea College of Business at California Polytechnic State University. She teaches and mentors student projects in various courses of the Packaging Program, including packaging design and development courses, and courses focusing on fiber-based packaging design, packaging performance testing, and packaging materials testing.
She uses a design thinking pedagogical approach in class projects and student mentoring. In 2019, Carbonell together with Professors de la Fuente and LaPorte, earned Cal Poly’s Learn by Doing Scholar Award for their four-year collaborative pedagogical research project, Design Thinking as a Framework for Teaching Packaging Innovation.
Her student project mentoring has brought national and international recognition to the Packaging Program. Her students have excelled at packaging design competitions, including; Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP) AmeriStar Package Award Competition, Worldstar Packaging Awards, Paperboard Packaging Alliance Student Design Challenge, Association of Independent Corrugated Converters (AICC) Packaging Design Competition, and International Corrugated Packaging Foundation (ICPF) Best of the Best Competition.
She holds a Bachelor of Engineering from Universitat Politècnica de València and a Master degree in Packaging from Michigan State University. After finishing her master thesis, she worked in the packaging industry as a packaging engineer and later as a project manager. Irene joined the Industrial Technology and Packaging Area in 2015.