Ware Malcomb announced Oct. 1 that Nick Watkins has joined the firm as director of workplace strategy. In this role, Watkins will lead Ware Malcomb’s strategy and change management services for clients in multiple practice areas across the firm.

“Nick’s unique experience and abilities make him a perfect fit for partnering with our firm-wide leaders to develop scalable and effective research-based strategy solutions that provide valuable business insights for our clients,” said Jinger Tapia, vice president of design at Ware Malcomb. “We look forward to his contributions to our team.”

Watkins will lead Ware Malcomb’s workplace strategy team in integrating mixed-research methods, including advanced statistical analyses, AI and machine learning, to inform the delivery of strategy and design. In addition, he will partner with firm leadership to develop scalable solutions to provide valuable business insights into portfolio management, space utilization, workforce or user experience, real estate metrics and other financial return-on-investment outcomes.

Watkins brings more than 18 years of experience in research leadership positions at large AE firms to his new role at Ware Malcomb. His experience includes workplace, health care and life sciences design research, supporting the needs of the firm’s clients, practice groups and corporate accounts. He has collaborated on various health care, education and public placemaking projects, delivering human-centered, experience-based work environments.

Watkins holds a Ph.D. degree in environmental psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and studied AI and machine learning at Michigan State University. He has also served as chair of the Environmental Design Research Association and co-founded the esteemed EDRA CORE program, which bridges the design industry with the environmental design research community by recognizing the quality and impact of research on client projects.

Ware Malcomb’s strategy solutions deliver a competitive advantage to clients by providing data-driven insights to help transform employee experience, enhance company culture, support business objectives and maximize performance. The workplace strategy and design teams at Ware Malcomb partner in the research process to seamlessly integrate strategy concepts into the planning and design phases of a project, delivering a high-performance environment invested in people and productivity.