It is with much gratitude and admiration that we celebrate the jury alumni members of the Core77 Design Awards.
Hector Silva brings over 7 years of teaching experience at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Notre Dame, the Academy of Art University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Rochester Institute of Technology at their nationally-acclaimed industrial design programs. Recognized for his contributions in academia, Hector was awarded the Young Educator of the Year by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). An active professional in the field, Hector works as an industrial design contractor through his own studio, H Design, partnering with Crate & Barrel, DesignLab, Nickelodeon, LeapFrog, Foster Grant, Insight Product Development, Lund & Company Invention, as well as various entrepreneurs. Hector is also the founder of the design nonprofit, Advanced Design (AD), an organization awarded the Special Achievement Award by the IDSA for making design education more accessible and through disrupting the mediums through which design education has been traditionally offered. AD continues to grow today, connecting students and working professionals to foster a community of design excellence. Most recently, Hector founded Offsite, a 12 week pilot program catered towards furthering design education outside of traditional academia space. This program was developed to translate the needs of the industry into course content taught by design industry leaders. The goal is to help students develop the right skill set and mentorship to thrive on the job and support them along the way.
Stacey Panousopoulos has extensive management and customer service experience in the creative sector. Stacey earned a BA in creative writing and classical studies at Hunter College in NYC. At AIGA NY, she builds relationships with the existing 3,000 members, the board of directors, sponsoring corporations and a range of external partners.
Joe Gebbia is a designer and entrepreneur, and is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Airbnb. In 2009, Gebbia was listed in BusinessWeek’s Top 20 Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs. In 2010, he was named in Inc. Magazine’s Thirty under Thirty, and 2013, he was named in Fortune Magazine’s Forty-under-Forty.
As Chief Product Officer, Gebbia oversees various teams to create a simple and easy Airbnb experience for all. The results are a product that considers the user’s experience from the moment of online contact to the end of their physical stay in Airbnb listings around the world. Under his leadership, Airbnb is now at the forefront of the emerging discipline of service design, a practice that improves the quality of interactions between service providers and their customers.
Gebbia's lifelong appreciation for art and design led him to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he now sits on the Board of Trustees. There, he honed his skills while obtaining degrees in product design and graphic design. While studying in the Northeast, Gebbia complimented his creative pursuits and studies at RISD with business coursework at Brown University and MIT. Influenced by the work of Jean Prouve, Charles and Ray Eames, and the Bauhaus movement, Gebbia has long been immersed in the art of designing for the human experience.
After moving to San Francisco, Gebbia worked as a designer for Chronicle Books where he experienced first-hand how a design-led business worked, department by department. The culmination of these ideas and experiences came to fruition in 2008, when he co-founded Airbnb with Brian Chesky and Nathan Blecharczyk. What began in an apartment in San Francisco during an IDSA conference has spread to 34,000 cities in over 192 countries.
Chad has been leading design in a range of innovative environments, such as start-ups, consultancies and corporations. At Airbnb, Chad collaborates with a small group of highly creative and curious wizards building the future of living, consumption and sharing. After studying in Canada where he grew up, Chad moved to the bay area, where he has been designing products with Fitbit, Microsoft and Google among others for the past 15 years. Chad believes that good design has power in minimalism yet still values warmth and humanity in its perception. For a design to be truly meaningful, it needs to be loved by the people that use it, as well as engaging viscerally and intellectually.
In his spare time, Chad loves designing and renovating his mid century home, riding his bike and cooking with friends.
Brooke is a Design leader with nearly 20 years of experience across product/UX, brand and experience. She currently leads Design for Airbnb’s Lux division as well as spearheading key strategic projects across the organization. Prior to Airbnb she was the Head of Design at Condé Nast across the portfolio of brands, and was a Creative Director at frog design working with clients such as Disney, Google, GE, Chase, and Westfield.
Milena Sadée is a Director of Design for Workshop at Airbnb. Prior to this role, she led a 30 person, multidisciplinary team within Amazon Devices that focused on early concept ideation and development across Echo Products, Alexa AI, Emerging Devices and more. Previously she led the interactive team at 2x4, an award winning global design studio with clients such as Prada, MoMA and Nike. There she focused on retail, event, exhibition, and installation design.
In October 2013 Bruno was appointed Chief Designer of Airbus Group. Airbus Group management charged Bruno with giving the Airbus Group range a more emotional design language. On this basis, Bruno set up future vehicle products, new ideas, future initiatives and technology strategy as a guideline for future Airbus Group innovations – some examples of the major innovations he delivered are the A350XWB cabin, cockpit design and the Concept Plane Vision 2050, both resulting in a new passenger comfort & service experience as well as a higher airline efficiency.
He oversees the Airbus Industrial Design Group and also provides leadership and direction for industrial designer teams across the company, as well as to foster a design excellence culture within Airbus Group. He is based in Munich, Germany.
Previously Bruno was the Head of Design and Advanced Design at the Airbus Commercial Design Centre in Toulouse, France, from 1994 to 2013. His mission was to develop all the aircraft products, differentiating their individuality, and creating a seductive interior of cabins and cockpits.
Prior to that he was in charge of car and product design at Renault-Matra's design studios from 1988 to 1993.
Bruno began his career at French automaker Peugeot, where he was responsible for driving the style of small and mid-size cars.
Bruno graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle with an MA in Industrial Design/Product Design
Master of Science in Economics and International Markets with 10+ years experience in managing innovative projects in automotive, mobility solutions and new technology fields in multinational and in startups contexts.
Passionate about new technologies, always curious towards future developments, focusing the attention on society change and impacts on people.
In free time, photographer for hobby, enthusiast bike-rider and a no-stop traveler.
Alda Ly is founder and principal of Alda Ly Architecture (ALA), a New York-based architecture and interior design firm that specializes in using biophilic principles to transform how healthcare, commercial, and cultural spaces work, look and, more importantly, feel. ALA was founded in 2017 when groundbreaking co-working platform The Wing tapped Alda to design its East Coast and California locations. ALA now works with a growing number of entrepreneurs, startups, and established organizations looking to overhaul traditional work, care, and retail models. Clients have ranged from Bloomberg and functional medicine provider Parsley Health to women’s loungewear company ThirdLove and social-action technology firm Blue State.
Alda was born in New Zealand and raised in a working-class suburb of Los Angeles, where she watched her cabinetmaker father draw kitchen elevations and accompanied him to open houses to see how people shaped their spaces. From the moment she studied freehand drawing as a UC Berkeley undergrad, Alda knew she wanted to become an architect, and went on to earn a master’s in the field from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Before opening ALA, Alda worked at Rafael Viñoly Architects, 212box, HWKN, and Leong Leong. Alda is a Registered Architect in New York.
Jess Gartner is the CEO & founder of Allovue, an education resource planning platform for K-12 schools and districts. Allovue helps education administrators connect spending to student outcomes. In the past, Jess has taught in numerous schools throughout the world including South Africa and Thailand. She received her M.A in teaching from John Hopkins University. She was featured as one of The Baltimore Sun's 2013 Women to Watch as a leader in education and Baltimore Magazine's 40 Under 40. In July 2012, she was a featured panelist alongside prominent education leaders at the Education Technology Innovation Summit in New York City. Her writing and photography has been published in Weekly, Changing, Skillcrush and Women 2.0.
Emily Privot McNamara is a Senior Researcher on the hardware (ID) research team at Amazon, where she works on evaluating existing products and framing challenges around people’s behaviors and interests to identify new opportunities. Prior to Amazon, Emily's career began as an architectural designer working on projects ranging from high-end retail environments to local non-profit urban streetscape improvements. From there she pivoted into design strategy to create things on a faster timeline, and focus on work that applied user needs with business goals and the application of thoughtful design. She began her strategy career as an intern at fuseproject and graduated to hold the position of design strategist at Native Design and VBP Orange.
Recently, Emily has been learning a lot about anthropometry and is applying her passion and specific interests in health/wellness and the older adult population to her work at Amazon.
Founding member of the packaging design practice at Ammunition, based in Brooklyn NY.
Hamish trained as an industrial designer, approaching packaging design from that perspective. Designing functional and delightful packaging experiences for consumer products.
Nicolas joined Ammunition in 2014. As a senior designer, he works closely with clients to help shape ideas into elegant, manufacturable solutions. Notable examples of his work include the UNICEF Kid Power Band, the Polaroid Hoop camera, and the Ammunition X Gantri Gio lighting collection.
Originally from a small town in France, Nicolas grew up finding inspiration and beauty in ordinary objects which eventually led him to pursue a career in industrial design. Prior to joining Ammunition, he worked with companies including Decathalon, Electrolux, and frog design. Nicolas graduated with a master’s degree in industrial design from ISD in France. His work has been featured in TIME magazine and was recognized by IDEA, Fast Company, Core77 and the Halo design awards.