Jury Alumni

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  Alda Ly

  Principal, Alda Ly Architecture PLLC

  2021 Built Environment Jury Captain

  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.

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  Dani Arps

  Interior Designer, Dani Arps LLC / Artisan

  2021 Built Environment Jury Member

  Opening her eponymous firm Dani Arps LLC in 2014; Arps is an interior designer who designs office spaces for top startup companies throughout NYC. She has worked with the Founders and CEO’s from buzzy startups like Daily Harvest, SeatGeek, Codecademy, and General Assembly; to create over 250K sqft of striking and of the moment designs that cater to their unique needs. She will be launching her new business venture, Artisan, which combines design, brokerage, and project management, this year.
  
  Featured in many publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, and Interior Design Magazine; She was named by top design publication, House Beautiful, as 2019’s ‘Next Wave Interior Designer’ and awarded as 2017’s ‘Star on the Rise’ by the renowned Decoration and Design Building.

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  Nina Etnier

  Co-founder, Float Studio

  2021 Built Environment Jury Member

  Nina Etnier is the co-founder of Float Studio, a design firm focusing on workplaces since 2013. She studied graphic design, marketing, and psychology at American University, then moved to London and shifted her focus towards interiors, completing her graduate degree in Interior Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2009. Along with her business partner, she was named Contract Magazine’s 2019 Designer of the Year, and her history managing large scale projects and developing specific architectural details and custom furniture allows her to create spaces that are faithful extensions of brands.

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  Jon Grossman

  Senior Industrial Designer, Verily Life Sciences

  2021 Commercial Equipment Jury Captain

  Jon is a senior industrial designer at Verily, Alphabet's healthcare & technology company, where he leads design and UX for a range of medical devices and their connected services. He collaborates with scientists, engineers, clinical experts, designers, and researchers to break technology out of the lab, and productize cutting edge innovations to help people live healthier lives.
  
  Previously, he was an industrial designer at frog in San Francisco, where he consulted with startups and corporations to turn research insights into product opportunities.

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  Ara Acle

  Senior Industrial Designer, Casper

  2021 Commercial Equipment Jury Member

  Ara Acle is a Bay Area native currently based in Oakland, CA. After graduating from San Jose State University, Ara spent time at many of the top San Francisco design consultancies. For 4 years he was an Industrial Designer at Frog where he led projects for clients in sectors ranging from consumer electronics, AR experiences, medical products, and environmental installations. Ara is currently a Senior Industrial Designer at Casper where he is helping the brand build sleep products that bring a sense of joy and comfort to consumers.

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  Alejandra Castelao

  Industrial Design Lead, Fjord

  2021 Commercial Equipment Jury Member

  Alejandra is an Industrial Design Lead based out of the San Francisco Bay Area, currently working at Fjord - part of Accenture Interactive. Born and raised in Mexico City, she holds a BA in Industrial Design and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Design. Alejandra has over 10 years experience working with multiple Fortune 500 companies, as well as early stage startups, helping them transform ideas into reality. She specializes in designing solutions that take place at the intersection of digital and physical. Over the years she's worked on a variety of projects that range from design research, usability testing and alignment workshop facilitation all the way to end-to-end design and shipping of full-fledged, consumer-facing experiences and products.
  
  Prior to joining Fjord she worked for other design consultancies such as frog design. Most recently, she had the opportunity to lead the physical experience design, interior architecture and custom tech solutions of concierge-style medical facilities for Forward, an innovative Healthcare startup named one of Time Magazine's best 25 inventions.

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  Jonathan Kim

  Senior Industrial Designer, Shopify

  2021 Commercial Equipment Jury Member

  Jonathan is a Senior Industrial Designer based in Toronto, Ontario. After 5 years of working in San Francisco as a core part of frog's industrial design team, Jonathan moved to Canada in early 2020 to pursue a new adventure with e-commerce powerhouse, Shopify. His experience as a design consultant spans across leading brands and start-ups in the tech, retail, automotive, government, and healthcare industries. As a part of Shopify’s budding hardware division, Jonathan works at the forefront of commerce innovation, bridging the gap between digital and physical in the retail arena.
  
  Born and raised in the Northern Virginia/ DC area, Jonathan is an east-coast creative looking to make lasting, meaningful products and experiences. Though his expertise lies in physical products, he believes that excellent, culture-shifting design comes from the convergence of multiple disciplines and diverse perspectives.

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  Stephanie Szarwark

  Senior Visual Designer, Enlisted Design

  2021 Commercial Equipment Jury Member

  Stephanie is a Senior Visual Designer at Enlisted Design, a visual and industrial design agency based in Oakland, CA where she brings brands to life through tangible visual design. Previously, she was a freelance brand designer, working with small Bay Area startups and large companies such as: Clif Bar, Nestlé, Ancestry, and Waymo (Alphabet). These projects ranged from packaging design to digital product illustrations to copywriting and art direction. Her diverse experience led her to specialize in helping clients hone their brand stories to better resonate with customers. Stephanie is particularly passionate about bridging the gaps between design and business strategy, and helping more people engage their own creative thinking.

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  Kevin Bethune

  Founder and Chief Creative Officer, dreams • design + life

  2021 Consumer Technology Jury Captain

  Kevin Bethune is the Founder & Chief Creative Officer of dreams • design + life, a "think tank" that delivers design & innovation services using a human-centered approach. Kevin's background spans engineering, business and design in equal proportion over his 25+ year career, positioning him to help brands deliver meaningful innovations to enrich people's lives.
  
  His work represents creative problem-solving that brings multidisciplinary teams together to see the future through an open aperture, and a deep industrial design approach to inform and influence desirable, feasible and business-viable design outcomes.
  
  Kevin began his career as a mechanical engineer in the nuclear power industry. This chapter gave him deep product experience working with high performing teams across 14 nuclear reactor upgrade campaigns. After his MBA, Kevin joined Nike, Inc. in a business capacity, but quickly navigated to the Global Footwear product engine to drive advanced digital product creation capabilities, discovering the world of design in the process. After solidifying his creative foundation through further studies at ArtCenter College of Design, Kevin co-founded distinct design & innovation capabilities at two Tier 1 management consulting firms in Booz & Co. and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). As Vice President of Strategic Design at BCG Digital Ventures, he led a large cohort of designers that would influence and shape every corporate venture spun out from the incubator. Kevin left BCG Digital Ventures to carve his own path under the banner of dreams • design + life, focusing on unlocking human potential through strategic design, industrial design and the building of new ecologies.
  
  Kevin also serves as a Board Trustee for ArtCenter College of Design and a Board Director for the Design Management Institute (DMI).

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  Liliana Becerra

  Founder, STUDIO LILIANA BECERRA Inc.

  2021 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Liliana is the founder of STUDIO LILIANA BECERRA Inc. a firm advising global companies on strategic design foresight and advanced CMF Design. Clients include AT&T, Simple Human, Sonos, Nestle & Lenovo. Her latest book, CMF Design is the first publication about the professional discipline of color material and finish design. She also an editorial contributor to design publications including Viewpoint Design and Viewpoint Color. She is an adjunct professor at Art Center College of Design and formerly, she served as the Head of Design Insights at Nokia where she led global, multi-disciplinary teams, trend research initiatives and key design strategies.

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  Folake Knudsen

  Product Designer, Workday

  2021 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Folake Knudsen is a Product Designer at Workday in Copenhagen where she is focused on Peakon, a platform for measuring and improving employee engagement, inclusion, and growth.
  
  Previously, Knudsen has worked at Bang & Olufsen, where she was responsible for the consumer-facing mobile app and software/hardware interactions, BMW, helping to build its connected mobile app for its fleet of luxury vehicles.
  
  Knudsen previously earned a Master’s degree in Human-computer interaction from DePaul University.

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  Magdalena Paluch

  Co-founder and CEO, LabTwin

  2021 Consumer Technology Jury Member

  Magdalena is the co-founder and CEO of LabTwin. She is a passionate design-driven entrepreneur with over 15 years of design and hands-on execution experience in building digital products and leading cross-disciplinary teams in an agile fashion.
  
  In her previous role as Director at BCGDV, she was responsible for building up from scratch more than ten corporate-backed start-ups in Europe and the U.S., primarily focused on the healthcare space.
  
  Before joining BCGDV, she worked as a Senior Innovation Strategist at Toyota, where she was responsible for identifying and implementing emerging technologies in mobility and robotics such as autonomous vehicle design.

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  Hector Silva

  Executive Director, Advanced Design

  2021 Design Education Initiative Jury Captain

  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.

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  Danielle Chen

  Staff Product Designer, Ro

  2021 Design Education Initiative Jury Member

  Danielle is a full-stack and mission-driven product designer passionate about creating products that are inclusive and accessible for all. As a recognized thought leader, she has spoken at a number of distinguished conferences including SXSW, Interaction Design Conference and International Design Conference, covering topics from design, cultures, technology and anything in between. She writes a newsletter called "Designing Culture“ dissecting how technology has changed our human cultures. She holds a Master’s in Integrated Product Design from University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s in Product Design from Drexel University.
  
  When she’s not doing design-related work (which is rare), you can find her leveling up her improv skills, going for hikes and making her next sourdough bread.

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  Alex Lobos

  Graduate Director, Industrial Design, Rochester Institute of Technology

  2021 Design Education Initiative Jury Member

  Alex explores design, technology, sustainability and emotional attachment as means to elevate quality of life. He is Professor and Graduate Director of Industrial Design at Rochester Institute of Technology, and Research Fellow Emeritus at Autodesk. At RIT, Alex leads a top-ranking program focused in interdisciplinary collaboration, accessible technology and applied design research. Alex and his students have partnered with Autodesk, AT&T, Colgate-Palmolive, General Electric, Makerbot, Stryker, Staples and Unilever, in projects covering digital fabrication, sustainable behaviors, learning futures, generative design, and everyday living. Alex holds a MFA from University of Notre Dame and a BID from Universidad Rafael Landivar.

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  Kat Reiser

  Senior Design Strategist, Booz Allen Hamilton

  2021 Design Education Initiative Jury Member

  Kat Reiser is a strategic thinker, driving innovation by understanding what to make and why it matters. In her time as a designer, Kat has consulted and participated in in-house design teams. She has had the opportunity to work with companies focused on housewares and packaged goods including Pampered Chef, PepsiCo, Chevron, P&G, AB InBev, and Oculus.
  
  Kat is also an instructor at Offsite, where she helps designers build the tools they need to seek employment while guiding the students through understanding and reflecting upon who they are and how they present themselves as designers.