Jury Alumni

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  Qin Li

  Vice President of Design, Fuseproject

  2024 A/V & Photography Equipment Jury Captain

  As the Vice President of Design at fuseproject, Qin Li leads the creative team, overseeing Industrial Design, Experience Design, Environments, Visual Design, and CMF. Harnessing her creativity and leadership, she takes a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to the team and design, and engaging all the disciplines within a fully informed, thorough, and integrated process.
  
  Qin's philosophy is rooted in a human-centered approach. She firmly believes that designers have the power to drive cultural change, enhance the quality of life, and address some of the world's most pressing issues. In her time at fuseproject, she has played a pivotal role in guiding designs to market for a diverse range of clients, spanning Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, non-profits, and entrepreneurs. These designs have encompassed various categories, including AI & robotics, health & wellness, wearable tech, consumer electronics, furniture, retail & exhibition, packaging & soft goods, among others.
  
  Qin’s work has been honored with global recognition and numerous awards, including Gold and a Special Award from IDEA for the Snoo bassinet and Ori Living, 100 Best Inventions of 2020 from TIME Magazine for a smart bot, Moxie, designed for Embodied, and 2023 Design Project of The Year Award from Dezeen for the Cionic Neural Sleeve. Qin is also the recipient of the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Academy of Art University.

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  Roger Kellenberger

  Swiss Army Knife of Design

  2024 A/V & Photography Equipment Jury Member

  I consider myself a versatile 'Swiss Army Knife' of design, focusing on connecting the dots between brand, product, and user by emphasizing human-centered design to maintain a value-oriented experience. Initially trained by fuseproject and Studio F.A. Porsche, I have spent the past fifteen years working for leading design studios in Europe, the USA, and Asia. During this time, I collaborated with startups and Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries, picking up a few design awards every now and then. Being naturally curious, I am fascinated by human-machine collaboration as part of the creative process and always wondering what’s next.

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  Youjin Nam

  Designer & Thinker, Reality Labs - Meta

  2024 A/V & Photography Equipment Jury Member

  My professional experience is a melting pot across multiple continents, agency to in-house, vision to execution, and design to business.
  
  Always asking "why", I believe good designers strive to understand basic human needs. Like culture, I believe good design is basic fabric of human life.

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  Tingbin Tang

  CEO, Jiusi Creativity

  2024 A/V & Photography Equipment Jury Member

  Tingbin has been a designer, educator, and serial entrepreneur. As a designer, his works have won many design awards, were reported by Time magazine, ABC Good Morning America program, BBC news, etc. And was permanently collected by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum. He has been teaching and managing at three institutions in three different countries. He was the Dean of the School of Design of Pearl Academy in India; an Interaction Design professor at San Jose State University in California, USA; and he was the founder and director of the Transportation Design program at CAFA Central Academy of Fine Arts in China. He founded Gopackup, which connects travelers with locals; he cofounded Trisenx, which brought the third sense, smell into the internet; he founded Nearal, a location-based professional networking platform; and he also founded and worked on MeiCAD, an AI-powered CAD tool.

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  Dayn Wilberding

  Director of Design, Exploration, Sonos

  2024 A/V & Photography Equipment Jury Member

  Dual-decade champion of design innovation culture for multi-sensory scenery and visceral joy. Product leader from the explorer teams that built iconic physical product experiences like Jawbone hearables, Jawbone Jambox, Sonos Trueplay auto-tuning, Sonos Move, multimodal UI, ambient interaction, generative moodscapes, and over 50 patents for tomorrow's experiences.

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  Stephanie Aaron

  Vice President, J.P. Morgan Chase

  2024 Apps & Platforms Jury Captain

  Stephanie Aaron is a design lead at J.P. Morgan Chase where she focuses on making things simpler for employees and customers every day. She has previously worked at quite a few large financial firms and the New York Federal Reserve. She ran her own design firm for more than a decade, with clients including The American Museum of Natural History, Citibank and Barnes & Noble.
  Outside of work she is North America regional coordinator for IxDA.
  A native New Yorker, she holds a BFA from the Cooper Union and an MFA in Interaction Design from the School of Visual Arts. In her free time she can be found with her nose in a book and a 62-pound pit bull on her lap or in a kayak on the Hudson River.

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  Jenifer Bulcock

  Founder/Owner, Peoplemade LLC

  2024 Apps & Platforms Jury Member

  Jeni is an experience design strategist based in New York City. Born and raised in Australia, she established a design business at the age of 24, which thrived in Australia and Canada before she embarked on a new journey in New York City a decade ago.
  
  Driven by a keen interest in strategic decision-making, Jeni transitioned into design and research roles within consultancy and in-house settings. Her experience encompasses both Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX), where she has spearheaded strategic design initiatives and digital transformation programs across various industries. Her portfolio boasts an array of national and global brands, including Samsung, Meta, Square, IKEA, AIG, Better.com, and KraftHeinz, among others.
  
  In January 2023, fueled by her entrepreneurial spirit, she founded Peoplemade LLC, a Service Design and UX Research consultancy.
  
  Outside of work, Jeni finds joy in taking her dog on long walks and hosting dinner parties featuring seasonal produce sourced from farmers' markets.

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  Alex Wilcox Cheek

  Design Manager, Google

  2024 Apps & Platforms Jury Member

  Alex Wilcox Cheek is a New York-based designer. For more than ten years, he taught in the School of Design, College of Humanities & Social Sciences, and Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon. His courses blended design, architecture, technology, and the humanities, reecting his cross-disciplinary approach to his practice. In that time, he spun o a number of start-ups including Classroom Salon, Macromicro, and Skale. Alex has long been involved with the Interaction Design Association, co- founding the rst chapter in the Middle East, IxDA Doha, and later serving as local leader for New York City. Today, he leads a design team at Google.

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  Jess Greco

  Director, Product Experience Design, Mastercard

  2024 Apps & Platforms Jury Member

  Jess Greco is an experience design and research leader with deep experience in tying customer insights into business priorities that drive design-led organizational change. She has a proven track record in creating an environment that fosters team collaboration and builds design maturity. Her experience is a mix of consumer and enterprise work across industries including financial services, payments, insurance, consulting, healthcare, education and media.

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  Meghan Romero

  UX Design Lead, JP Morgan Chase

  2024 Apps & Platforms Jury Member

  Meghan is a UX Design Lead at JP Morgan Chase, where she uses service design and collaborative design techniques to improve customer and employee experience. Prior to Chase, she designed new products in the healthcare industry to support nurses and patients and also worked in K-12 and higher education in a number of roles. Meghan lives in northern Delaware with her husband and enjoys Saturday morning yard sales, travel, margaritas, and talking about whatever tv shows she has been watching recently.

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  Taamrat Amaize

  Chief Strategy Officer, Collins

  2024 Branding & Identity Jury Captain

  I'm a strategist who doesn't believe in conned thinking.
  I like using provocative approaches and out-of-category parallels to arrive at solutions. I live for problem-solving and apply that kind of critical thinking to both business and brand challenges.
  My experience with established brand behemoths and scrappy start-ups— from technology to CPG, B2B and B2C—has given me an invaluable perspective.

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  Alero Dawn Akuya

  Vice President of Global Brand, LEGO

  2024 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  While at Nike for 13 years, Alero was responsible for some of the most pivotal brand transformations for the sport and culture giant. Most notably, Alero created Nike's Purpose Marketing division, leading Nike's role in sport and social impact alongside key athletes Colin Kaepernick, Serena Williams, Kobe Bryant and many more. She led Nike New York where she orchestrated the launch of Nike's collaboration with Virgil Abloh at New York Fashion Week-- a first for the brand, and one of Nike's most successful collaborations of all time.
  Alero now serves as the Vice President of Global Brand for The LEGO Group. She is responsible for transforming the impact of the 89-year-old Danish brand globally to become a proactive cultural leader through play advocacy, inclusion, and innovation. She has led integrated brand strategy and global initiatives, and campaigns such as Rebuild the World, 90 Years of Play, Play Unstoppable, and Everyone is Awesome. Alero is committed to inspiring a world play movement to ensure creative play remains a birth rite to all children.
  

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  Nu Goteh

  Principal, Room for Magic

  2024 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  Nu Goteh is a multi-disciplinary creative & designer who works in audio, visual, and written mediums. He is the co-founder of the strategy and design studio, Room for Magic, and co-founder and creative director of partner publication, Deem Journal. Nu’s practice is informed by his love for counter/subculture(s), his background as a Liberian-born refugee, and a lifelong dedication to building platforms that enable communities to engage in shared experiences.

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  Nermin Moufti

  Design Director + Partner, Field of Practice

  2024 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  Nermin is a brand alchemist, design director, and co-founder of Field of Practice, a women- and member- owned creative studio that designs for change.
  
  A whole-hearted champion for form, function and care, Nermin translates thoughtful strategies into holistic design systems. She’s reinvigorated hyper-local to global brands and led boundary-breaking campaigns for Karam Foundation, Planned Parenthood, Type Directors Club, Dentologie, and the Collaborative for Gender and Reproductive Equity. Her work has been recognized by the STA 100, Typewolf, Brand New, Communication Arts, and Fast Company Innovation by Design. She holds a BSc in Visual Communications from the American University of Sharjah (UAE), and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts, Media and Design from OCAD University. She’s living and working from her Chicago home.

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  Erich Fox

  Producer, Executive Team Director, Gentilhomme

  2024 Built Environment Jury Captain

  With nearly three decades of experience, Erich stands as a seasoned professional in the dynamic realm of technically challenging projects. His extensive portfolio boasts successful leadership across the globe, encompassing diverse ventures such as theme-park attractions, large-scale exhibits, experiential and environmental activations, restaurants and public spaces.
  
  Erich's expertise lies not just in project execution, but in his role as a guiding force. His primary focus is on meticulously navigating clients and partners through the intricacies of project planning. Whether it's aligning the design vision or establishing a robust foundational project plan, Erich ensures precision and alignment in every step of the process.
  
  Based in the vibrant city of Toronto, Erich finds joy in the simple pleasures of life. Outside the dynamic world of project management, he shares his home with his wife and dogs. Erich's leisure activities reflect his creative spirit, indulging in drawing and model-making. His green thumb finds expression in gardening, and he embraces an active lifestyle by embarking on long-distance bicycle rides. Beyond the boardroom, Erich's passions reveal a well-rounded individual with a zest for both the creative and the outdoors.

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  Lyndsey (Vincent) Archer

  Founder & Creative Executive, Studio Archer (Formerly LVincent Studios)

  2024 Built Environment Jury Member

  Lyndsey's journey in design began at Walt Disney Imagineering, where she spent over a decade contributing her creativity to projects like EPCOT World Celebration, Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, Shanghai Disneyland Resort and World of Disney flagship retail. Her expertise in crafting immersive experiences across retail, hospitality, and attractions has earned her recognition, including a coveted spot in Design:Retail Magazine’s “40 under 40.”
  
  In October 2021, Lyndsey embarked on a new adventure, co-founding Studio Archer and taking her lessons learned in themed entertainment design to the masses “beyond the berm.” From luxury hospitality to landmark sporting venues, Lyndsey aims to inspire, engage, and delight guests of all ages and backgrounds with her adventurous designs & artistic approach.