Michaele Simmering is the co-founder and creative director of Kalon, a Los Angeles-based design studio celebrated for its sustainable ethos and timeless approach to contemporary furniture. Since 2007, Kalon has created furniture collections that emphasize craftsmanship, materiality, and ecological responsibility, earning international recognition including the Good Green Design Award from the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum, Sight Unseen’s American Design Hot List, and Wallpaper*'s 2024 Business Design Leader honor. With a background in critical theory and as a Fulbright Award recipient, Simmering brings intellectual depth to her creative practice and shares her perspective as the host of Kalon’s podcast, Objects in Conversation.

Norman Teague is a Chicago-based designer, educator, and curator whose work merges functional design, cultural storytelling, and social impact. Rooted in his upbringing in the Back of the Yards and Englewood neighborhoods, Teague’s practice focuses on equity, cultural identity, and community engagement. Through Norman Teague Design Studios, he creates furniture, spaces, and art that celebrate diverse narratives and collective experiences.

Teague’s work has been showcased in significant exhibitions, including the Venice Architecture Biennale, Chicago Architecture Biennial, and the solo exhibition Designer’s Choice: Norman Teague—Jam Sessions at MoMA, where he reimagined design history to amplify underrepresented voices. He has also led curatorial projects, such as collaborations with The Silver Room and efforts to integrate arts and culture into Chicago’s Southside.

Known for his innovative designs like the Sinmi Stool and Africana Chair, Teague’s work combines sculptural elegance and functionality, often utilizing ad-hoc materials to address themes of accessibility and identity. As an educator and mentor, he fosters inclusivity and empowers the next generation to use design as a tool for cultural and social transformation.

For Bec Brittain, designing lighting and products is the logical evolution of a lifelong interest in form, materials, and technology. She grew up surrounded by creative people: her mother is an artist; her father had a woodworking business; and her paternal grandparents (as well as her step-grandfather) were architects. After deciding that her initial interest in studying fashion design would lead to a career that was too trend-focused, Bec studied product design at Parsons before exploring the philosophy of design at NYU and the concepts behind architecture at the Architectural Association. An early job making custom door hardware led Bec to the realization that she loved the process of making things in metal, and a subsequent job as design director for Lindsey Adelman, the noted lighting designer, affirmed Bec’s view that lighting embodied not just the challenges of engineering and technology, but also the playfulness of form and the richness of materials. By 2011, Bec had opened her own studio in New York City and designed the critically-acclaimed SHY light, named for the initials of her grandmother, the architect Sarah Hitchcock Yerkes, one of the first women to receive a master’s degree in architecture from Harvard.

Bec’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, Case da Abitare, and Wallpaper magazines, among many others. Her limited edition designs have been shown at Patrick Parrish Gallery, The Future Perfect and Emma Scully Gallery. Her clients include today’s top architects and interior designers, and her work appears in commercial and residential projects around the world.

Based in Rhode Island, Christopher Specce is a teacher and independent designer. His practice spans from commercially oriented product design to one of a kind pieces emphasizing craft and materiality. In addition to serving as department head and associate professor in the Department of Furniture Design at Rhode Island School of Design, his professional experiences include projects across the furniture and consumer product industries for clients such as Herman Miller, Design Within Reach, and P&G. From 2015 to 2018 he was co-organizer of Furnishing Utopia; a design, research, and exhibition project primarily centered on creative responses to the design influence of the Shakers.

With an approach that occasionally crosses from design into art, he believes that useful objects are important expressions of culture, with materials, production, form, and functionality playing both utilitarian and symbolic roles. His studio practice features extensive use of digital design and fabrication tools alongside traditional craft techniques.

Bowen Liu founded her namesake award-winning design studio in New York City in 2017. The studio specializes in high-end residential and fashion houses, such as Louis Vuitton.

Liu creates artistic furniture and lighting collections that imbue with a sense of tranquility. Her design is often packed with thoughtful considerations and distilled to a minimal and clean appearance. Focus on intelligent simplicity and authentic crafts to produce collectible designs and functional art for contemporary living.