Mariana Amatullo
Vice President, Director, Designmatters Department
Art Center College of Design
Mariana Amatullo is the Co-Founder and Vice President of the Designmatters Department at Art Center College of Design. Through Mariana Amatullo’s leadership, Art Center is the first design institution to be affiliated as a non-governmental organization with several United Nations agencies and development organizations. The award-winning and tangible outcomes of the Designmatters portfolio unite educational objectives with advocacy and social innovation outcomes that are disseminated globally by Designmatters partners. Amatullo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina; she holds an M.A. in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of Southern California and a Licence en Lettres Degree from the Sorbonne University, Paris.
Banny Banerjee
Founder and Director, Stanford ChangeLabs
Stanford University
Banny Bannerjee is the Founder and Director of Stanford ChangeLabs, a new initiative within the Stanford Design Program aimed at creating rapid, large-scale, sustainable transformation in the complex issues facing mankind — water, energy, climate change and social inequity. He works with Stanford faculty from behavioral sciences, social economics, systems analysis, management science, engineering, and art to generate new platforms for design thinking. Banerjee has worked on projects related to architecture, energy analysis, software design, structural engineering, MEMs applications, ambient media, nanotechnology, object semiotics, space missions, low cost structural systems, sustainable design, appropriate technology for third world countries, organizational transformation, technology strategy and technology art.
Scott Boylston
Program Coordinator, Design for Sustainability, Savannah College of Art Design President, Emergent Structures
Scott is Program Coordinator and co-author of the Masters in Design for Sustainability at SCAD, and professor in Design for Sustainability. He’s the author of 3 books, and has published over a dozen short stories in respected literary journals. Scott is co-founder and president of Emergent Structures, a non-profit organization dedicated to innovative, community-based material reclamation and re-use. Scott also founded SCAD’s Design Ethos conference and ‘DO-ference,’ a workshop-based conference that brings together design practitioners with community leaders in order to address pressing social and economic concerns within the local community. He speaks internationally on design and sustainability, and holds a masters from Pratt Institute.
Rodrigo Canales
Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior
Yale School of Management
Rodrigo Canales researches the role of institutions in entrepreneurship and economic development. Specifically, Rodrigo’s work seeks to understand how individuals purposefully enact organizational and institutional change. Rodrigo has done work in entrepreneurial finance and microfinance. As he continues his work on microfinance he is also conducting research in the institutional complexities of renewable energy and the institutional implications of the Mexican war on drugs. Rodrigo teaches the Innovator Perspective at Yale SOM; he sits in the steering committee of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT; and he advises startups in Mexico that seek to improve the financing environment for small firms.
Charlie Cannon
Associate Professor, Industrial Design, RISD
Director, Research and Design, Local Architecture Research Design
Charlie Cannon co-founded the Innovation Studio at RISD to confront pressing issues of our day through interdisciplinary collaboration, social entrepreneurship and design research. The studio’s projects have been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rhode Island Renewable Energy Fund, the RISD Research Foundation and the City of Denver. Cannon is also co-founder of Local Architecture Research Design, a design firm in Providence, Rhode Island that focuses on projects that develop and sustain local communities.
Allan Chochinov
Chair, School of Visual Arts MFA in Products of Design
Partner, Core77
Allan Chochinov is the Chair and Co-Founder of the SVA MFA in Products of Design Program. He writes widely on design education and the impact of design on contemporary culture. He has been a guest critic at various design schools in including Yale, NYU, University of Minnesota, RIT, and RMIT, and is a frequent design competition juror. He is also a partner of Core77, a New York-based design network serving a global community of designers and design enthusiasts. He is the editor-in-chief of Core77.com, the widely-read design website, Coroflot.com design job and portfolio site and DesignDirectory.com design firm database. He serves on the boards of the AIGA, Designers Accord, Design Ignites Change, and DesignNYC.
William Drenttel
Editorial Director and Publisher, Design Observer Group
Director, Winterhouse Institute
William Drenttel is a partner at Winterhouse, a design practice in New Haven, Connecticut, focused on social innovation, online media, and educational institutions. He is also V.P. Marketing and Communications for Teach For All, an international education network, and a advisory board member of the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation and ideo.org. Through the Winterhouse Institute, he is leading a series of initiatives (funded by the Rockefeller Foundation 2009-2011) to develop models for design and social innovation. Drenttel is president emeritus of AIGA and a senior faculty fellow at the Yale School of Management. He is the editorial director of Design Observer, a leading website focused on design, social innovation, urbanism and cultural commentary.
Tom Fisher
Professor and Dean, College of Design
University of Minnesota
Thomas Fisher is a professor and dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota. Educated at Cornell University in architecture and Case Western Reserve University in intellectual history, he previously served as the regional preservation officer at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, the historical architect of the Connecticut State Historical Commission in Hartford, and the editorial director of Progressive Architecture magazine in Stamford, Connecticut.
Liz Gerber
Assistant Professor, Segal Design Institute
Northwestern University
In 2008, Liz co-founded Design for America, a new and rapidly growing organization for college campuses that inspires students to use design to create local and social impact. In the process, students prepare to drive human centered innovation throughout their careers. Previously, Liz taught at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (aka the d.school). In 2008 she completed a PhD at the Center for Work, Technology, and Organization and a MS in Product Design at Stanford University. She researches how work practices and technology influences innovation.
Phil Hamlett
Graduate Director, School of Graphic Design
Academy of Art University
Phil is the graduate director of the School of Graphic Design at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, the largest private art and design school in the country. Prior to the Academy, Phil was communications director at Turner & Associates, and director of creative services for EAI/Atlanta (now known as “Unboundary”). Phil also works at setting the agenda for sustainable business practice within the design community. He founded Compostmodern, a design conference devoted to sustainability, and is a co-author of the Living Principles for Design, a comprehensive framework to guide the development of sustainable design solutions. Phil also serves as a national board member for AIGA.
Wendy Ju
Program Coordinator, UC Berkeley’s Cal Design Lab
Lecturer & Researcher, Stanford University
Wendy is innovating curriculum in interaction design at UC Berkeley and Stanford University. She is the founder of Ambidextrous Magazine, which examines the broader social and ideological context of modern day design practice. Wendy was also the chief instigator of the Transformative Design course at the d.school at Stanford. She holds a doctorate from the Center for Design Research at Stanford University.
Marcia Lausen
Principal, Studio/Lab
Director, School of Art and Design
University of Illinois at Chicago
Marcia Lausen is the founder of Studio/Lab and Director of the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Marcia helped to initiate Design for Democracy, a strategic program of AIGA that seeks to improve the quality and clarity of government communications. Her book, Design for Democracy: Ballot + Election Design, was published in 2007 by the University of Chicago Press. Marcia received her MFA in graphic design from Yale University. She was named a FastCompany Master of Design in 2004.
David Mohney
Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture
University of Kentucky College of Design
David Mohney is the co-author of three books:
Seaside: Making a Town in America,
The Houses of Philip Johnson, and
The Louisville Architecture Guide; he is working on a book about contemporary design In Rotterdam. David has taught at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and SCI-Arc. He was educated at Cranbrook School, Harvard College and Princeton’s School of Architecture. David was the Founding Secretary of the Curry Stone Design Prize, a global award for design ideas that promote a better world, and he is presently forming a consortium of international design schools focused on Social Urbanism.
Lara Penin
Assistant Professor and Co-founder, Parsons DESIS Lab
Parsons The New School for Design
At Parsons, Lara Penin coordinates the Area of Study of Service Design and through Parsons DESIS Lab she promotes Design and Social Innovation within curriculum and lead projects such as ‘Amplifying Creative Communities’ awarded with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. She holds a PhD in Industrial Design and Multimedia Communication from Milan Polytechnic University in Italy and a BA in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Natacha Poggio
Assistant Professor, Visual Communication Design
Hartford Art School, University of Hartford
Since 2007, Natacha Poggio has been developing strategic design projects that promote sustainable development and awareness of global issues. Her research fosters interdisciplinary partnerships that bring positive social change at local, national, and international levels. She is the founder of Design Global Change, a collaborative of students and alumni helping local and international communities through service-learning projects. As the 2010 recipient of a Sappi Ideas that Matter grant, she spearheads a project promoting gender equality in India. A native of Buenos Aires, she holds an MFA in Design from the University of Texas at Austin.
Anthony SheldonLecturer in Economic Development & Executive Director of the Program on Social Enterprise, Yale School of Management
Tony Sheldon has been executive director of Yale School of Management’s Program on Social Enterprise since 2008, and lecturer in economic development since 2007. He teaches practicum courses on social entrepreneurship, as well as a course on microfinance. He is also the founder and principal of Bering Consulting, which works with microfinance institutions in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, primarily in the areas of financial management and business planning. Tony has also worked with several development finance networks and funders, including the Ford Foundation, the World Bank, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), ShoreBank International, and Women’s World Banking.
Cameron Tonkinwise
Associate Professor, School of Design
Carnegie Mellon University
Tonkinwise is an Associate Professor, director of Design Studies and chair of the Doctoral Design Program Committee at Carnegie Mellon University. Formerly the chair of Design Thinking and Sustainability for the School of Design Strategies at Parsons The New School for Design, Tonkinwise was responsible for developing offerings in the areas of strategy, sustainability and service design. He was also the Co-Chair of the Tishman Environment Design Center, managing the New School’s university-wide degree programs in Environmental Studies, and was a founding member of the Parsons DESIS Lab (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability). Cameron’s current research concerns lowering societal materials intensity by decoupling use and ownership — in short, sharing.
Julie Zimmerman
Associate Professor of Green Engineering, Assistant Director for Research at Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Dr. Julie Beth Zimmerman is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed to the Department of Chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering Program and the School of Forestry and Environment. She is also a Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Virginia. Her research interest include green engineering, environmentally benign design and manufacturing, and the fate and impacts of anthropogenic compounds in the environment as well as appropriate water treatment technologies for the developing world. Through her engineering research, Julie is working towards the next generation products, processes, and systems based on efficient and effective use of benign materials and energy to advance sustainability.
Joseph P. Zinter
Assistant Director, Center for Engineering Innovation and Design
Yale University
Joseph is the Assistant Director of the new Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design (CEID), a 10,000 sq. ft. facility aimed at encouraging and supporting cross-disciplinary collaboration, idea generation, and realization of technologies to improve the human experience. He also lectures and conducts workshops on design thinking, engineering design, prototyping, and design and commercialization of technology in developing world contexts. Prior to joining Yale he acted as Design Preceptor at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He holds a BS (Columbia University) and MS (Cornell University) in Applied Physics, and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering (Yale University).
