ACTION - Key Persons

Adam Kallish

ak..@id.iit.edu

Job Titles:

Design Executive
Principal, Trope Collaborative

Adam Kallish is a design executive focusing on the intersection of applied imagination, services, and technology that address business and market transformations. Adam uses design systems and actively collaborates with management, product development, business, and engineering to create products and services, linking vision to requirements to results informed by human-centered design. Before teaching at ID, Adam held teaching positions at North Carolina State University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Northern Illinois University. He also served on the Savannah College of Art and Design Foundation's advisory board. Industry Experience Adam has held leadership positions in design, consulting, and corporate enterprises. He focused on integrating design methods from the 1970s with other frameworks such as design thinking, design management, and contemporary agile and lean frameworks to streamline design's value in business. By asking key questions and closely collaborating with client stakeholders and their customers, he reframes a sense of shared purpose for more effective co-creation. His continual goal is to merge theoretical and pragmatic points of view into a more dynamic and fruitful relationship. Adam currently consults through Trope Collaborative. Previously he was Chief Product Officer at Humancore.ai revamping a platform for employee and team engagement by using generative AI to deliver content based on personality types and emotional modalities. Prior to that, he served as Director of Immersive Services at PwC's Workforce Transformation, integrating AR, VR, and XR for training and team collaboration. He has also served as Director of Immersive Services at PwC's Workforce Transformation, integrating AR, VR, and XR for training and team collaboration; Principal at Daggerwing Group, focused on change and transformation initiatives by addressing human factor gaps in corporate culture; and Associate Partner at Infosys Strategic Design Consulting, collaborating with enterprises to re-envision all aspects of their business and business value. He was Design Principal with IBM Systems, Associate Partner at marchFIRST, Director of Innovation Development/Midwest Region at ZEFER Corporation, Delivery Director at Tanagram Partners, and Design Director at Andersen Worldwide.

Ali Karbassi

ak..@id.iit.edu

Job Titles:

Founder and CEO of We All Code

Ali Karbassi joined the Institute of Design (ID) as an Adjunct Faculty member in 2017. At ID he teaches courses including Digital Media and Prototyping Interactions. Ali's areas of interest include social entrepreneurship, prototyping interactions, computer-aided design and development, interaction design, and technology trends. Industry Experience Ali is the founder and CEO of We All Code and runs the monthly sold-out public speaking event Ignite Talks Chicago. Ali founded We All Code in 2013 after ten years in the corporate sector, working in the advertising and tech industries, as well as a startup focused on the Internet of Things (IoT). Throughout his career, he noticed how few women and persons of color worked professionally in his field. We All Code is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in Chicago dedicated to sparking curiosity in coding among kids aged 7 to 17, with a particular focus on girls, students of color, and low-income students. Its mission is to introduce a diverse group of children to the fun of coding by providing free educational resources and hands-on classes. Ali and his team at We All Code envision a world where all children have an equal opportunity to ignite their curiosity through coding. We All Code has since taught more than two thousand students across Greater Chicago and engaged over three hundred volunteer mentors, many of whom work in technology-related fields. At monthly sessions of the popular Ignite Talks Chicago, presenters get twenty slides, which automatically advance every fifteen seconds. The result is a fast and fun presentation that lasts just five minutes. Ali's aim is to bring a diverse audience together to expand their worlds into areas they have never experienced. Presentations can range from a history of the Samurai sword to the economics of video-game skins to a manifesto on boxes.

Allison Karas

Job Titles:

Staff Product Designer and Real - World Data Design Lead, Tempus Labs, Inc

In practice, research, and teaching, Allison Karas aims to make human-data systems broadly accessible. Her product and interaction design experience focuses on data platforms and enterprise systems that represent, analyze, learn, act, and build with data. Allison received her Master's Degree in Graphic Design from North Carolina State University and her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from Iowa State University. Industry Experience Allison has over 15 years of product and service delivery experience from high-growth startups and global design firms. Currently, Allison is a lead product designer at Tempus Labs, Inc., a technology company dedicated to making its growing library of clinical and molecular data accessible and useful for patients, physicians, and researchers. Allison leads the design of real-world data tools and systems, including those that structure clinical data, manage internal medical ontology, and monitor incoming EHR records. Allison's product and interaction design practice is grounded in visual representation and systems design. She spent six years in the graphics studio at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (2008-2014), leading communication design that illustrated the relationships between people, cities, infrastructure and the environment. She consistently draws on those core skills and methods as a graphic designer for architecture and urban spaces, and applies them to visualize infrastructures and systems for digital experiences. Allison also worked at IA Collaborative on their Interaction Design team (2019), and Uptake Technologies (2017-2019) on their Data Platform.

Amrita Kulkarni

Job Titles:

Assistant Editor of My Liveable City
Design Researcher, Strategist
Director of Design Research & Strategy at Highland

Amrita Kulkarni is a design researcher, strategist, and writer with work experience across four continents. With formal education in architecture, industrial design, and innovation strategy, she has spent the past 12 years in the innovation and consulting space, helping imagine new futures in collaboration with her clients. She holds a bachelor's degree in Architecture from RVCE, Bangalore, and an MA + MSc in Innovation Design Engineering from the Royal College of Art + Imperial College London. Industry Experience Amrita is the Director of Design Research & Strategy at Highland, a digital product and innovation consultancy based in Chicago. In collaboration with other directors, she has helped establish a seamless research + design + build process that begins with exploratory design research, followed by identifying design opportunities, strategizing user experience, interface design, MVP definition and development-culminating in digital product launch. Prior to Highland, Amrita worked at Gensler and IA Collaborative in Chicago, leading multidisciplinary teams on curious, analytical, and empathetic searches for game-changing insights. Her foundational driving force lies in defining the right thing to do before doing it the right way, and this directive reflects in her research questions, synthesis frameworks, and team conversations. Whether working on a patient data management app for the US market, prototyping digital experiences for subway riders in London, aligning disparate global teams around a user growth journey, building culture-sensitive solar lamps in west African villages, or designing new food experiences that celebrate crafts in India, her focus on ‘user' behavior-whether that of a customer, consumer, manager, teammate, client, or other-drives a holistic understanding of all the forces at play. Her prior employers include Hager, Coca-Cola, and eLand Foundation, with work locations in Strasbourg, France; London, England; and Mali, Africa. Her work has been recognized through awards from Adobe, Ford, James Dyson Foundation, Royal Society of the Arts and Association of Commonwealth Universities. Amrita is the Assistant Editor of My Liveable City magazine, an exploration into the rapid growth and development of urban realms around the world, with a goal to make our cities sustainable, inclusive, and liveable for all. She has contributed to the magazine as a columnist since 2014, spanning topics ranging from Industrial Design, Service Design, and Design Process. In collaboration with the Gensler Research Institute, she and her team published a white paper on the Evolution of Creative Learning at work. She also co-authored a blog, Toward Humane Healthcare, reflecting on patient considerations in gaining trust through the pandemic.

Anijo Mathew

an..@id.iit.edu

Job Titles:

Advisor
Consultant
Dean, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Urban Technology, & ID Academy Director
Founder and Board Member of Vamonde
Professor at the Institute of Design

Anijo is the founder and board member of Vamonde, a Chicago storytelling app operating worldwide and named by Built in Chicago as one of six Chicago startups shaping the future of virtual reality. Anijo has developed and taught courses at ID since 2008. These include Multidisciplinary Prototyping for Entrepreneurship, an initiative that brought together students from different academic units at Illinois Tech to work in multidisciplinary projects. He conceptualized and led the immensely popular Global Immersion Program for over seven years. These programs connect students and faculty members with global corporate and government entities to design for projects of strategic importance in various regions around the world. He also helped develop a curriculum for prototyping at the Institute of Design (with Martin Thaler) that continues to be a critical part of ID seminars, lectures, workshops, and studios. Anijo has served as an advisor and consultant to several global organizations and startups. He works especially with Asian organizations such as the Dubai Future Foundation in the UAE, Godrej & Boyce in India, the Far Eastern Group in Taiwan, and Finablr in the UAE, advising company senior leadership on strategic innovation projects. Anijo is a recognized speaker at national and international events. His many keynote presentations have been at the National Building Museum, University of Chicago, Google, Capital One, Wipro, Motorola, Gensler, IDSA, Knowledge of Design Week in Hong Kong, Confederation of India Industries (CII), Urban Land Institute, and the International Downtown Association. He has also published articles in a variety of journals and books, and received numerous research grants and funding for sponsored research. In 2012, Anijo was recognized as a Fellow of the Urban Communication Foundation (UCF), a leader in promoting scholarship in the area of communication within an urban context. In 2007, Anijo was the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) New Researcher of the Year, recognition intended to acknowledge and reward emerging figures in architectural and environmental design research that demonstrate innovation in thinking, dedication in scholarship, contributions to the academy, and leadership.

Arlene Harris

Job Titles:

Member of the Board of Advisors
Founder and Chairwoman, Wrethink

Along with husband and partner Marty Cooper, inventor of the first cellular portable phone, Arlene Harris has helped and launched several businesses since starting idea incubator Dyna, LLC in 1986. Arlene has more than 35 years experience as an entrepreneur, board member, advisor, inventor, and investor in a number of successful companies in wireless-related businesses. She founded GreatCall and in 2006 launched its simple and personalized cell phone experience Jitterbug in partnership with Samsung. The Jitterbug offering has earned top honors, being named in the New York Times 10 Brilliant Ideas of 2006 as well as Reader's Digest Top 100 Products. GreatCall also won the wireless industry's coveted Andrew Seybold Choice Award for ‘Best New Company' in 2007 and was also honored with the ASA award for Best Small Business in 2008 for the unique Jitterbug cellular service offering. Arlene has founded and sold several companies, including SOS Wireless Communication, which became GreatCall. Before SOS and GreatCall, she started the software company Subscriber Computing, Inc., where she invented the first prepaid wireless service, and in 1986 she invented the first specialized cellular offering, founding Cellular Pay Phone, Inc. In 1983 Arlene joined partners and founded the management systems leader Cellular Business Systems, Inc. (CBSI). At age 12, Arlene became a mobile telephone operator at her family's business, ICS Communications in Los Angeles. She later led ICS systems and operations to pioneer methods that became standard in the nascent wireless industry.

Ben Jacobson

Job Titles:

Partner, Conifer Research

Ben Jacobson teaches Behavioral Observation and other courses as an Adjunct Faculty member at the Institute of Design (ID). He has more than 20 years of consulting experience helping clients develop innovative products, services, and business models from a user-centered perspective. Ben's strengths lie in developing new approaches to gathering critical insights about everyday user behaviors and working with interdisciplinary teams to invent better user experiences and successful corporate strategies. He has a bachelor's degree in behavioral sciences and a master's in social sciences from the University of Chicago, as well as a master's degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Industry Experience Ben founded Conifer Research in 2001 with a mission to produce evergreen research systems and knowledge bases that leverage the enormous potential of ethnographic research. Conifer specializes in delivering new insights in response to tough challenges, framing research questions and customizing data collection efforts to provide the breadth and depth needed to generate meaningful insights.

Bill Hill

Job Titles:

Creative Director
Designer
Director

Bill Hill is a creative director, designer, entrepreneur, and educator helping global companies, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions evolve using his skills in business strategy, experience design, and branding. After an 11-year career at IDEO Product Development, Bill founded the San Francisco office of MetaDesign in 1992 with a mission to create value for clients through the integration of design and business. He helped build MetaDesign into an international consulting firm that solved branding, information design, and strategic service problems through branded identities, customer-centered interfaces, and environmental graphics. From 2012 to 2014, Bill was director of creative services at Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California. He returned to consulting with Experience Design, Inc. to compliment his other full-time job as the dad of Zoe and overseer of a growing collection of chickens and rabbits in their garden in Marin County, California.

Brandon Schauer

Job Titles:

Member of the Board of Advisors
Head of Enterprise Design at Capital One
SVP, Climate Culture at Rare

Brandon Schauer is the Head of Enterprise Design at Capital One. As of October 2014, Brandon lead the Adaptive Path team to become a part of Capital One, working to create great human experiences that change banking for good. There he leads what's arguably the largest internal service design team in the U.S., guides the sustained program Adaptive Path conferences, and created AdaptivePath.org to help non-profits transform communities through design. Brandon holds two master-level degrees from schools with the Illinois Institute of Technology. He received a Master of Design from the Institute of Design in Chicago where he studied design planning. Concurrently, he graduated with a MBA from the Stuart School of Business. He holds an undergraduate degree in Industrial Design from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Brandon is a past editor for the Institute of Design's Perspectives on Design and Strategy. He's a co-author of Subject to Change: Creating Great Products and Services for an Uncertain World. And Brandon has a love of Excel that is unnatural for a designer.

Brian Walker

Job Titles:

Member of the Board of Advisors
Chief Product Officer, W.W. Grainger, Inc
Chief Product Officer, W.W. Grainger, Inc. Emeritus Board of Advisors

Brian Walker was named Chief Product Officer at Grainger in October 2019. In this role, Brian leads the prioritization of Grainger's technology investments, including Grainger's digital platforms, mobile solutions and the industry leading Grainger.com. Brian has held many roles of increasing responsibility at Grainger. Most recently, Brian served in technology innovation capacities including Vice President, Digital Architecture and Operations and President of Gamut.com. Prior to that, while headquartered in London, England, he served as Vice President of Strategy and Marketing for Grainger's Online Business with operations in Canada, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States. Brian has also led teams responsible for corporate strategy, merchandising, and pricing for Grainger US Business. He joined Grainger in September 2006 as Purchasing Manager. Prior to joining Grainger, Brian led teams in warehousing, logistics, supply chain and sales operations at McMaster-Carr Supply Company. Brian holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from Wesleyan University, a master's degree in Applied Statistics from DePaul University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Brian serves on the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Institute of Technology and is on the Board of Advisors for the Institute of Design. He has served as a founding board member for Wesleyan's Quantitative Analysis Center and is a current member of Wesleyan's President's Council.

Brianna Sylver-Galvao

Job Titles:

Member of the Board of Advisors
Founder and President, Sylver Consulting, LLC

Carlos Teixeira

ca..@id.iit.edu

Job Titles:

Member of the Faculty & Staff
Founder of ORGE Innovation Consulting
Named Charles L. Owen Professor in Design

Carlos is the founder of ORGE Innovation Consulting, which advises global leaders in organizations on how to build the know-how to innovate through design capabilities and strategies.

Charles L. Owen

Job Titles:

Member of the Faculty & Staff
Professor of Systems Design and PhD Program Director

Carlos Teixeira is the Charles L. Owen Professor in Design at the Institute of Design (ID), where he focuses on Systems Design and teaches graduate courses and advises doctoral students on the strategic use of design capabilities in complex spaces of innovation. He is also director of the PhD program and the Sustainable Solutions Action Lab. Carlos received a doctorate in design from ID in 2002. Previous to his PhD, he received a master's and bachelor's degree in design from Pontifícia Universidade Católica in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Before joining ID in 2016, Carlos served as a faculty member at Parsons School of Design in New York (2003-09), where he was instrumental in developing undergraduate and graduate programs in strategic design and transdisciplinary design. In 2014 he received the Distinguished Teaching Award by The New School for his innovative pedagogy in graduate design studios and projects.

Charles Owen Endowed

Job Titles:

Charles Owen Endowed Chair and Professor Emeritus

Charlie Smith

Job Titles:

Innovation Executive and Design Lead, Salesforce Ignite

How do you tell a compelling story without being in the room? Charlie Smith co-leads a course on Video Storytelling where we help students select and develop an intent and then shape stories with a strong emphasis on audience consideration. We guide students through a pre-to-post video production workflow over the 7-week course including storyboarding, studio critique, interview fundamentals, camera set-ups, asset management, non-linear editing, and motion design.

Cheryl Dahle

cd..@id.iit.edu

Job Titles:

Climate Initiative Manager
Entrepreneur and Teacher
Founder and CEO of Flip Labs

Cheryl Dahle is an entrepreneur and teacher who works at the intersection of design and social change. Along with teams of designers, scientists, researchers, and anthropologists, she creates and tests new ways to solve large-scale, systemic problems. Cheryl previously taught for two years as an adjunct professor in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. Cheryl received a bachelor of science in journalism from Northwestern University. Industry Experience Cheryl is founder and CEO of Flip Labs, a relational design firm. The company's first foray into systems work was tackling the global problem of overfishing through its Future of Fish initiative, which Cheryl led for ten years. Future of Fish was one of two national finalists in the 2012 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, which recognizes insightful systemic approaches to ending the world's most complex problems. Prior to founding Future of Fish and Flip Labs, Cheryl was a director at Ashoka, where she distilled knowledge from the organization's network of 2,500 fellows to provide strategic insights to foundations and corporations. Before her work in the nonprofit sector, she was part of an incubation and start-up team to launch an online environmental magazine, for which she helped secure $12 million in venture funding. In her first career as a journalist, Cheryl spent 15 years writing about social entrepreneurship and business for publications including Fast Company, The New York Times and CIO. She also founded and led Fast Company's Social Capitalist Awards project, a first-of-its-kind business award for top social entrepreneurs. In addition to the Buckminster Challenge award, Cheryl has received awards including Change Agent in Residence, Bainbridge Graduate Institute (2014); Eco-Innovator, USA Today (2013); and Finalist, Katerva Award (2012). She is a consultant and advisor to multiple organizations, including the Buffett Institute, Criterion Institute, and Development in Gardening. Cheryl has served as a main-stage presenter at a number of conferences, including Main Fuel Vancouver (2011) and Business Innovation Factory Summit (2014). She also delivered the keynote address at the Adaptive Path Service Experience Conference (2017) and Skoll Centre Global Challenge (2017). Her original research includes "Changing the Future of Wild Fish: An Entrepreneurial Approach to Sustainable Solutions" (2009) and "Future of Fish: Executive Summary" (2010), both commissioned by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Cheryl's publications include the book No Horizon Is So Far and the article "Designing for Transitions: Addressing the Problem of Global Overfishing" in Cuaderno 73.

Chris Finlay

Job Titles:

Member of the Board of Advisors
Founder, Borderland & Co

Chris "Rocky" Finlay has over 20 years of brand-focused design and strategy experience that includes identity, communications, digital, and physical space design. Chosen by BusinessWeek as one of 21 people who will change business, he has been a regular speaker on human-centered design and innovation strategy, taught graduate level courses on human-centered design, and authored the book Getting to Thank You, A Practitioner's Guide to Innovation. Previously he has served as a business leader at NOBULL, UnitedHealth Group, Optum, UnitedHealthcare, and Mayo Clinic, and worked for top innovation consultancies including Doblin, Cheskin, and the Business Innovation Factory. He has worked on challenging issues for clients such as Humana, Microsoft, Target, Hunter Douglas, and the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has founded and sold multiple companies, and most recently founded Borderland & Co., a design-driven investment and strategy company. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts, a Master of Design from the Institute of Design, and a Master of Business Administration from Illinois Institute of Technology's Stuart School of Business.

Daniel Chichester

An alumnus of IIT's Institute of Design (ID), Dan Chichester returned to ID as an Adjunct Faculty member in 2017. In addition to teaching classes in Observing Users, Design Planning, and Research Photography at ID, Dan is also a lead instructor for Illinois Tech's Interprofessional Projects Program (IPRO), which he joined in 2016 and where he helps undergraduates build a bridge from their academic experiences to their future careers. Dan has co-instructed Design Innovation classes at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and acted as Design Mentor at NU Health Hacks. He received a bachelor of science degree in photography from Grand Valley State University and a master's of design with an emphasis in photography from ID. Industry Experience Dan leads qualitative research for major innovation projects (B2B and B2C) to generate and develop innovative concepts across product and service offerings, and new business strategies. He specializes in working with tight-knit teams of design innovators and business strategists, incorporating empathetic stories of user experiences leading to new business and growth opportunities. His work has focused on many industries, including consumer products, financial services, food and beverage, healthcare, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, retail, telecommunications, and travel. From 1991 to 2016, Dan led the user-research discipline for account teams at Doblin Group, the innovation strategy practice of Deloitte. During this period, he helped clients develop actionable, proprietary, and deep customer insights to inform innovation strategy. Dan was responsible for organizing the field research strategies and helping clients and colleagues understand how to get the most out of the latest qualitative research methods and qualitative theory.

Denis Weil Ends

Job Titles:

Dean

Don Norman

Job Titles:

Director

Don Norman returned to the University of California, San Diego to start the Design Lab, a research and teaching unit focused upon complex sociotechnical issues such as healthcare and automation (human-technology teamwork). He is cofounder of the Nielsen Norman Group, an IDEO fellow, a former vice president of Apple, and an advisor and board member of numerous companies. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Don is professor emeritus of computer science and design at Northwestern University and professor emeritus of both psychology and cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego and an advisor to and honorary professor of Tongji Universityís College of Design and Innovation. He has been distinguished visiting professor of industrial design at Korea's Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Don was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science and has honorary degrees from University of Padua (Italy) and Delft University of Technology (Netherlands). His books include Emotional Design, Living with Complexity, and, most recently, an expanded and revised edition of Design of Everyday Things.

Donna Flynn - VP

Job Titles:

Member of the Board of Advisors
Vice President
Vice President, Global Talent, Steelcase

Donna Flynn is Vice President, Global Talent, leading Steelcase's efforts to attract, retain, develop, engage, and inspire Steelcase employees around the world. She has been with the company since 2011 and was appointed to this role in March 2020. Prior to this role, Donna served as Vice President, Workspace Futures, leading a team of design researchers studying the future of work, workers, and the workplace to inform Steelcase's strategy, culture, and product design and development. She has collaborated with, hired, and been inspired by many ID graduates and faculty over the years. Before joining Steelcase, Donna spent nine years leading experience research and strategy at Microsoft, helping to design and develop user experiences across a range of products. She was also a user experience consultant at Sapient in San Francisco, a social science analyst at the International Center for Research on Women in Washington, DC, and an international development consultant in Africa and the Middle East. She has also served on the Advisory Board of the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado, an interdisciplinary institute for radical creativity and invention. Donna earned her PhD in anthropology from Northwestern University (1996) and never imagined at that time that she would ever call herself a designer. She was a Fulbright Scholar from 1993 to 1994, and received a BA in anthropology/African and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Colorado (1989). Donna's home base is a 20-acre ranch in Colorado and she travels the world physically and virtually to design better work experiences for Steelcase and their customers.

Dr. Marc R. Hannah

Job Titles:

Co - Founder, Silicon Graphics Inc.

Dr. Marc Hannah co-founded Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) and spent 16 years helping grow the company from a small start-up to a multibillion dollar computer hardware and software company with products from desktop workstations to large, multiprocessor supercomputers. When Marc left the company in 1997, he was vice president and chief scientist. Since leaving SGI, Marc has done consulting projects for SGI and other companies and has had high positions in multiple start-ups, including vice president of technology for Omniverse Digital Solutions, a minority-focused web-based media company; vice president of product architecture for Pulsent Corporation, a technology company developing compression technology for video delivery over the Internet; and chief technology officer for SongPro, a consumer electronics company focused on offering portable media players cartridges and content for the Nintendo Game Boy. Marc has also served on several corporate boards. He is a partner in SUDA (Strategic Urban Development Alliance), an Oakland-based development company with projects in the San Francisco Bay Area and Ghana.

Eric Larson

Job Titles:

Member of the Board of Advisors
Chairman and Co - CEO, Tilia Holdings

Eric Larson has spent over thirty years as an investor in private companies. He is the cofounder of three private equity firms (First Chicago Equity Capital, Linden Capital Partners, Safe Foods International Holdings) and is embarked on a fourth (Tilia) devoted to food, agronomy and environmental health. For the past two decades, he has focused on investments and effective governance in healthcare and life science companies. Mr. Larson and his wife are active in several science-based organizations. Mr. Larson's activities include: The National Geographic (International Council of Advisors), the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Leadership Council and member of the Nutrition Roundtable), Illinois Institute of Technology (Trustee), the Center for Higher Ambition Leadership (Fellow) and the Gaples Institute (member of the Advisory Board). Mr. Larson has an undergraduate degree in biology from Harvard University, a graduate degree in design from the University of Michigan, and a graduate degree in business from the University of Chicago.

Grace Colby

Job Titles:

Member of the Board of Advisors
Emeritus Board Member

A former board member of ID, Grace Colby supports a student of outstanding promise through the Grace Colby Fellowship.

Ilya Prokopoff

Job Titles:

Partner, IDEO

An ID alum and former ID board member, Ilya Prokopoff has been an IDEO Partner since 2007 and is managing director of IDEO San Francisco. Ilya knew from a young age that he wanted to be a designer. He studied design at both University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana and the Institute of Design. He was drawn to ID's rigorous approach to design as a way of solving problems. He launched his design career at Doblin, where he worked for six years, blending management consulting and design. From there, he went to IDEO, where he has worked on various teams for more than 20 years. From graduate students to the C-Suite, we help professionals use design to address the speed, scale, and complexity of change in our lives.

Jamshyd N. Godrej

Job Titles:

Member of the Board of Advisors
Chairman of the CII Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre
Chairman, Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.

Jamshyd N. Godrej is the Chairman of the Board of Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Company Limited. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology. Godrej is the former Chairman of Ananta Aspen Centre (previously known as Aspen Institute India), Chairman & Trustee of Ananta Centre. He is the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, India Resources Trust, and Council on Energy, Environment and Water. He is a Director of ClimateWorks Foundation and World Resources Institute, USA. He is a Trustee of World Wide Fund for Nature - India. He is also a Trustee of the Asia Society, USA. He is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society. He is the Godrej is the Chairman of the CII Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre. The Centre is housed in a LEED Platinum demonstration building which is the first green building in India and the greenest building in the world at the time when it was rated. The Green Business Centre is a Centre of Excellence for green buildings, energy efficiency, energy conservation, non-conventional energy sources, water policy, water conservation, etc.

Jennifer Levin

Job Titles:

UX Strategist and Experience Lead, Motorola Solutions

Jennifer Levin has over 20 years of experience developing innovative digital experiences targeted at both consumer and professional markets. As an Adjunct Faculty member at the Institute of Design (ID), she currently teaches the Interaction Design Workshop, which focuses on the principles of interaction design as well as concrete skills such as wireframing, prototyping, and sketching. At ID, Jennifer pushes her graduate students to explore new interactions through making things and to create new digital experiences that both add value and are delightful to use. Jennifer first joined ID in 2016, co-teaching a service design class that helped students explore and prototype different interactive design concepts, products, and user interfaces for the Shedd Aquarium. In addition, she was an Adjunct Faculty member at the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University and remains a thesis mentor there. Jennifer has a bachelor of fine arts degree in graphic design from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master of Professional Studies from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, where she studied interactive sculpture and video art. Industry Experience Jennifer is Experience and Service Design Lead at Northern Trust Lab (2017-present). In her role there, she leads the design of new digital experiences for the clients and employees of Northern Trust through concept sketching, user research, persona creation, prototyping, and interactive design. Jennifer was previously a design director at the Human-Centered Design Studio at UnitedHealthcare, leading digital services design (2016-17). Before that, she was a design manager at McDonald's Innovation Center (2011-14), collaborating with global marketing and technology groups to lead the design of both customer and employee-facing digital experiences. She also served as Principal Interaction Designer for IDEO (2007-11). Jennifer holds patents to five user interface designs and has received design awards for her healthcare and finance work, including a Medical Design Excellence Award (2010) and three IDEAs (International Design Excellence Awards).

Jenny Niemann

Job Titles:

Member of the Board of Advisors
President & CEO of Forward Space
President / CEO and Owner of Forward Space

As President/CEO and owner of Forward Space, Jenny Niemann is responsible for the strategic leadership of the company-providing guidance in support of client needs, establishing goals, defining strategies and providing general oversight of company activities. Prior to her role with Forward Space, Jenny was CEO of Red Thread, a Steelcase Dealership in New England. Red Thread is a wholly owned subsidiary of Steelcase Inc., the global leader in the furniture industry, providing products, services and insights into the ways people work. With an annual revenue of $3 billion, Steelcase is traded under SCS on the NYSE. Jenny started her career with Accenture in information systems consulting. She then spent nearly 20 years with Steelcase before moving to Red Thread. Her work experiences at Steelcase included sales/distribution, product marketing/development, operations, and process improvement through information technology and LEAN. Jenny earned an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. She graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine, with a double major in Mathematics and Economics. She is a member of the Steelcase, Inc. Board of Directors. Additional board and advisory commitments include Trustee on the board of The Chicago Architecture Center (www.Architecture.org), member of the Women's Business Development Center (wbdc.org) advisory committee and member of the IIT Institute of Design Board of Overseers. She stays involved in the Chicago community through membership in the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) Chicago Chapter, The Economics Club of Chicago and The Chicago Network (Thechicagonetwork.org). She is currently on the YPO Chicago and The Chicago Network boards. She is a member of CoreNet, an organization focused on professional development in the corporate real estate profession. Raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Jenny has lived in Maine, Ohio, Massachusetts and currently lives in Winnetka, IL with her husband.

Jereme Dumm

je..@id.iit.edu

Job Titles:

Design Strategist, Cleveland Avenue

Jereme is a designer and strategist who uses collaboration and rapid-prototyping to help companies develop new ideas and businesses. He's worked for Fortune 500 companies, including Wrigley, Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark, OfficeMax, Samsung, and S.C. Johnson & Son. Before leading the design and strategy team at Cleveland Avenue, he worked at number of premier design + strategy companies including Egg Strategy, Doblin, Gravitytank and Vessel Ideation, in Chicago.

Jeremy Alexis

Job Titles:

Associate Teaching Professor
Vice Provost for Professional and Continuing Education and Associate Professor of Innovation

Jeremy Alexis is an Associate Teaching Professor at ID and the Vice Provost for Professional and Continuing Education at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech). At ID, he teaches Analysis & Synthesis in Design (a Foundation design process class) and Innovation Methods (a survey class on advanced innovation methods). As Vice Provost for Professional and Continuing Education, Jeremy curates the knowledge, experience, and talent from across all of the colleges and institutes at the university to offer customized non-degree, credentialed training, coaching, and toolkits. He holds a bachelor's degree in architecture from Illinois Tech and a master of design (MDes) from ID. Alexis, Jeremy. 2013. "From Lock In to Lock Out, Using Design to Create Fiercely Loyal Customers." In Rotman on Design: The Best on Design Thinking from Rotman Magazine, edited by Roger Martin and Karen Christensen. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Jessica Meharry

jm..@id.iit.edu

Job Titles:

Designer
Researcher
Director of Academic DEI at Columbia College Chicago
Visiting Assistant Professor

Jessica Meharry is a designer, researcher, and educator who develops justice-oriented design methodologies for professional practice. She teaches courses in the politics of design, critical contexts of design, and the philosophical context of design research. Jessica received a PhD from the Institute of Design (ID), an MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design, and a bachelor of science from Northwestern University. Industry Experience Jessica's cross-disciplinary research interests focused on designing for equitable economies, strategizing processes that frame equity as an innovation driver, and developing inclusive design management pedagogy. Jessica's current research projects include the development and testing of an anti-oppressive design framework focused on information and communication technologies. She is also a collaborator on a research project led by Hillary Carey, PhD candidate at Carnegie Mellon University, in which they're using design methods to explore anti-racist futures in organizational contexts. In her previous role as the Director of Academic DEI at Columbia College Chicago, Jessica led college-wide efforts to transform curriculum and pedagogy through anti-racist frameworks. Jessica's scholarly research focuses on three intersecting lines of inquiry that explore equitable design methodologies in both practice and pedagogy: anti-oppressive design practices for professional designers; envisioning anti-racist futures through design methods; and equity-oriented experiential education within design pedagogy and curricula. Jessica has more than 20 years of experience in managerial roles in design, marketing, and communication. She actively maintains an award-winning creative practice of graphic design projects, for both personal explorations and professional clients.

Jody Campbell

jc..@id.iit.edu

Job Titles:

Designer and Strategist
Executive Creative Director at Magic Might

Jody Campbell is an interaction designer and strategist with extensive experience leading creative teams through complex, systemic design challenges. Since 2017, she has served as an Adjunct Faculty instructor at the Institute of Design (ID) for the Foundation class Introduction to Visual Communication. At ID, she demonstrates how to apply design principles and techniques to craft effective visual messages that consider context, message, and receiver. Jody sees every problem as an opportunity for impact made possible by boundless imagination; imagining better futures requires "design doing," not just thinking-pairing hands-on research with empathic design methodologies to develop ideas that are both human-centered and forward-looking. Her background in communication design and experience as a design educator strongly influence her "show-don't-tell," hands-on approach to both design leadership and client engagement. She received a bachelor of fine arts degree in communication design from Carnegie Mellon University. Industry Experience In addition to her work at ID, Jody is Executive Creative Director at Magic+Might, an interactive product design and innovative consultancy in Chicago. There, she oversees the work of the design team and business operations including business development, project planning, hiring, career development, and external communications. After joining Magic+Might in 2012, she led a two-year engagement with Ford Motor Company to develop robust research methodologies and standards for the redesign of more than 800 vehicle symbols. More recently, she oversaw the team's research and creative efforts in developing a new design language for a future in-vehicle infotainment system. Before joining Magic+Might, Jody served as Creative Director for VSA Partners, Inc., from 2010 to 2012.

JoEllen Kames

Job Titles:

Director of User Experience Design at Tableau, a Salesforce Company

In addition to her current Adjunct Faculty position at the Institute of Design (ID), JoEllen Kames served as guest lecturer at MIT (2009-14) and at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management (2011-15). JoEllen received a bachelor of arts degree in history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a bachelor's of fine arts in communication design from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Industry Experience JoEllen is Director of User Experience Design at Tableau, a Salesforce company (previously Narrative Science). Powered by artificial intelligence, Tableau is redefining the future of data analytics with products that write stories from data to drive understanding and results. Prior to that, JoEllen was Portfolio Lead and Vice President at Northern Trust. There, she built new research and design capabilities and led a multidisciplinary team in defining a framework for meaningfully measuring digital experience metrics using a variety of data sources (2016-19). Before then, JoEllen was Senior Director of the Human Centered Design Studio within the United Healthcare Innovation Center of Excellence (2014-16), where she led ethnographic research + interaction design projects focused on population health. JoEllen was at Motorola from 2005 to 2014, ultimately serving as Senior Principal, Research + Design Strategy, Motorola Mobility.

John Cain

jc..@id.iit.edu

Job Titles:

Design Strategist
Design Strategist, Entrepreneur, & Educator

John Cain is a design strategist, serial entrepreneur, and educator whose work has consistently focused on innovation-developing robust methods for creating products and services amid the startling challenges and opportunities of the past three decades. In the face of new technologies, globalization, and the current data economy, he has persisted in applying an integrative approach, drawing on the humanities, technology, and design traditions to inform his own work, and that of his clients and students. John joined the Institute of Design (ID) as an Adjunct Faculty member in 1997. From 2017 to 2019 he served as a full-time Visiting Professor at Illinois Tech before returning to Adjunct Faculty instruction. As Visiting Professor, John developed courses at the intersection of design, technology and business that bridged ID and Illinois Tech's Department of Computer Science. In addition to his work at ID, John has served as a consultant and visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and as a guest lecturer and project sponsor at Carnegie Mellon University. He has also lectured at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. John has a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering and industrial design from Illinois Tech. He also trained at the Yale Design Program in Brissago, Switzerland. Industry Experience John has been active in a number of ventures including consumer products, data, and analytics start-ups. He is a frequent writer and lecturer on topics ranging from experience design and consumer research to innovation, data analytics, and the internet of things (IoT). In 2010 John and longtime associate Rick Robinson launched a research and development firm, Iota Partners, to design and build sensor technology platforms for ongoing collection of smart data. When Iota was acquired by SapientNitro in 2013, the intelligence platform developed by John and Rick became the centerpiece of Sapient's Consumer Intelligence services. In 2007 John became Cofounder and Managing Partner of Sideriver Ventures, a business incubator whose mission is to identify industries and product categories ripe for disruption. Prior to that, he was at HWT, an innovative start-up data analytics firm that he joined 2004. As COO, he led programs for public health payers to implement audit, analysis, and payment recovery solutions. In 2008, HWT was acquired by UnitedHealth Group, where John led data innovation programs. John and Rick Robinson first worked together in 1994, when they cofounded the pioneering human-centered research firm E-lab, widely recognized as the first standalone social research and design services firm. In 1999, E-Lab was acquired by Sapient Corp., a technology consulting firm at the forefront of design, business, and technology integration. From 1987 to 1994 John was Design Practice Lead at Jay Doblin & Associates (later Doblin Group), where he helped shape design strategy for clients including McGraw Hill, Amoco, and Apple Computer, among many others.

John Dominski

Job Titles:

Senior Design Researcher

John Grimes

Job Titles:

Professor Emeritus
Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Design

John Grimes is a professor emeritus at the Institute of Design, where he teaches courses in interactive media, software design, visualization of information, and imaging. His research at ID examines the uses of images in interactive media, the future of publications, and the development of user-research methods. One of his current projects, a software-based system for facilitating research into user values, has been sponsored by ID's Tangible Knowledge Consortium, a unique corporate-sponsored research initiative funded by Motorola, Steelcase, Lante, Andersen, and Zebra Technologies. Along with Professor Whitney, he has participated in the development of the Electronic Learning Record, now Bettr@, under the sponsorship of the MacArthur Foundation. Professor Grimes is also a leader in the development of computer-supported digital imaging and is an authority on the history and development of photography. He has written and lectured extensively about these subjects, and in 1992 he co-edited The New Vision, published by Aperture. He has been a frequent juror for computer animation competitions. Over the years Professor Grimes has participated in many professional organizations, including the Society for Photographic Education and ACM-SIGGRAPH. He has organized symposia on the future of the image in publication, and his own images have been included in a number of exhibitions and permanent gallery collections. He holds a BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MS from the Institute of Design.

Judd Morgenstern

Job Titles:

Member of the Board of Advisors
Co - General Partner
Co - Managing Partner, Partners Resolute

Judd Morgenstern is Co-Managing Partner of Partners Resolute, a boutique office that invests across public securities, alternatives, private equity, and early-stage ventures. As a believer in the value of ambidextrous thinking, Judd followed a multidisciplinary career path that spanned private equity, innovation strategy, and product design. He worked as an Associate at Valor Equity Partners, an operationally oriented private equity fund with early investments in Tesla Motors and SpaceX, before pursuing a double masters in design and business. Judd later held roles at Adaptive Path and IA Collaborative, where he joined top human-centered designers to help companies such as Mozilla Labs, Nike, and Johnson & Johnson internalize innovation methods, discover new market opportunities, and design next generation products and services. Additionally, Judd serves as Co-General Partner and investment lead for Resolute Venture Partners, where he enjoys working at the intersection of design thinking and venture investing. He has lead investments in ecommerce, IOT, media, mobile, smart home, and other sectors, and is always trying to spot the next wave. Judd holds a BA in Economics and Philosophy from Vanderbilt University, as well as a Master of Design from the Institute of Design and MBA from the Stuart School of Business, both at Illinois Institute of Technology. Judd lives in New York City, but can usually be found lost in the internet.

Kathleen Brandenburg - Founder

Job Titles:

Founder
Member of the Board of Advisors
Founder, Chief Design Strategy Officer, IA Collaborative

Selected by Fast Company as a Master of Design and one of 50 Most Influential Designers, Kathleen Brandenburg is an internationally recognized founder, thought leader, educator and speaker on the global stage-from Delhi to Hong Kong to the Mayo Clinic. Named a "Creative Maverick," Kathleen has devoted her career to elevating design as a strategic value for business, organizations, and society. An early pioneer and advocate of human-centered design, she was one of the first to link design, business strategy, and innovation when she co-founded IA Collaborative, the global design and innovation consultancy, in 2000. Today, Kathleen is leading the conversation to elevate design's impact even further, championing it as the way solve our world's most urgent problems. A Harvard Visiting Professor of Design for Social Innovation, she is at the forefront of a movement to change the way healthcare understands and applies design, and is the author of Design for Health: The Beginning of a New Dialogue Between Design and Public Health. Kathleen leads work at the forefront of design and business strategy at IA Collaborative. An expert in cross-pollination, she draws from the varied industries IA serves to uncover unexpected connections and opportunities for innovation. She co-developed the company's 7 Elements of Design Innovation™ process that has driven record success for the world's largest brands, including Nike, Airbnb, Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, Audi, Charles Schwab, Samsung, and FedEx. Whether scrubbing in for surgery as a means to reinvent Johnson & Johnson's patient experience, or running with athletes to uncover opportunities for Nike wearables, Kathleen believes that research is creative-and that true innovation starts with "living the problem to design the solution." Kathleen's award-winning work has been featured in multiple publications. She serves on the Innovation Council at Northwestern University and is on the Board of Directors at IIT Institute of Design.

Keiichi Sato

Job Titles:

Professor Emeritus

Keiichi Sato is the Charles Owen Professor at the IIT Institute of Design. He teaches graduate courses in design theory and methodology, product and system architecture, human-centered system integration, and interactive systems design. His research focuses on the creation of theories, methods, and tools that facilitate the development of interactive products, systems, and services with convivial qualities as well as effective performance. His current research interests are general design theory and methodology, design knowledge representation and management, and human system integration for incorporating meaning for users. His recent projects include advanced technology application to health care and elderly care environments, next-generation automotive systems, and distributed healthcare systems. He has published over 70 papers and articles as well as several book sections and chapters. He has received many awards for his academic and professional work including Best Paper Award at ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, Best Paper Award at IEEE International Workshop on Robotics and Human Interactive Communications, Design Innovationen at Haus Industrieform Essen, and Best Paper Award at ACM-IEEE Design Automation Conference. His students' design projects also have won many awards. He is a editorial board member for the Design Studies and the International Journal of Design.