It is with much gratitude and admiration that we celebrate the jury alumni members of the Core77 Design Awards.
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Jury Alumni
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.
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.
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.
Peter Michaelian
Head of Design, Dolby Laboratories
2020 Commercial Equipment Jury Captain
Peter Michaelian is head of design at Dolby Laboratories for products and experiences. Through industrial and environmental design, he and his team help to bring advanced audio and visual experiences to the world.
Previously, he served as creative director at frog in San Francisco. Michaelian received undergraduate and master’s degrees from The Cooper Union in New York City and taught as an adjunct professor of design at The Cooper Union, University of California-Berkeley and California College for the Arts. He is named on 58 patents and 25 international design awards.
Christopher Kuh
VP, Industrial Design Studio, Ammunitiongroup
2020 Commercial Equipment Jury Member
Christopher joined Ammunition in 2008, and has played an integral role within the studio’s ID group to create meaningful product experiences for clients such as Beats by Dre, Polaroid, Skype and Sky, as well as numerous startups. In his current role, Christopher focuses on managing Ammunition’s ID team, providing ongoing project leadership, coordination, creative direction and mentoring.
Anton Ljunggren
Director of Global Design and Innovation, PepsiCo
2020 Commercial Equipment Jury Member
Anton Ljunggren is a Director of Global Design and Innovation at PepsiCo where he works on building new businesses to unlock behavior change in health and environmental sustainability. Prior to PepsiCo Anton was the head of design at, clean energy startup, BioLite, bringing electricity, lighting and clean air cooking to hundreds of thousands of users in emerging markets. He also worked at frog and Smart Design where he designed products and experiences for companies including Cisco, Disney, Google, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Nike, Panasonic and Skype. His work has garnered global recognition winning awards including from CES, Core77, FastCo, IDSA, IF, Spark and Red Dot.
Cormac Eubanks
Product Development Consultant, APX Product Design
2019 Commercial Equipment Jury Captain
As a Product Development Consultant Cormac has worked with numerous high profile growth startup clients in Silicon Valley including Postmates on the development of the Serve sidewalk delivery robot.
Cormac Eubanks was Vice President of Product Design at Skycatch - a drone company that uses flying robots to create data for customers in the construction industry. Previously, Cormac was the Product Development Director at frog where he worked for almost 10 years. frog is a global innovation firm that Creates and markets products, services and experiences for industries like consumer electronics and computers. Before that Cormac was a Mechanical Design Engineer at Rockwell Collins where he was responsible for mechanical design and analysis of Helmet Mounted Display System for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and prototyping multiple external visor designs for flight-certified use.
Earlier Cormac was the Lead Mechanical Designer at CVI Laser Corporation from 1999 to 2002. He was responsible for designing precision optical mounts for catalog and custom OEM applications. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Engineering Design from Carnegie Mellon University.
Erik Askin
Associate Design Director, NewDealDesign
2019 Commercial Equipment Jury Member
Erik is an Industrial Design Manager at NewDealDesign. Hands-on and fully committed to the craft, Erik strives to push design excellence through all phases of the process. Erik has worked on everything from wearables to autonomous vehicles, building relationships with both small startups and Fortune 500 companies. Notable works include Fitbit (Alta, Blaze, Charge2, Flex2), Helm Personal Server, Postmates Serve Autonomous Delivery Robot, and Solo Gelato.
A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Erik moved to San Francisco in 2012 after spending several years in the medical industry at Keytech inc. When not at work, he can often be found on two wheels.
Natasha Margot Blum
Principal Director, Blumline
2019 Commercial Equipment Jury Member
Natasha specializes in human-centered design research and strategy. She is passionate about creating services, experiences, environments, and products that help people live better, healthier, and more fulfilled lives in a rapidly changing world.
In 2017, Natasha founded the design and innovation strategy consultancy Blumline, where she and her teams blend creative and scientific research methodologies to catalyze radical and compassionate innovation. Blumline's goal is to shift perspectives and behaviors around ambiguous landscapes like the future of health and wellness, the age of autonomy, and mindfulness in the digital age.
Natasha's service design experience rests at the intersection of mobility, wellness, health, hospitality, and retail for clients including Postmates, Volkswagen, Livongo, Singapore Airlines, Lincoln, and emerging brands in the boutique hotel industry.
Greg McNamara
Founder, Mast
2019 Commercial Equipment Jury Member
Greg McNamara is an award-winning designer and creative leader.
He is a founder of Mast, a collaborative product studio that crafts interwoven experiences. They create cohesive product experiences through physical objects and services, that aim to be transformative. At Mast, Greg focuses on working fusing technology and material innovation with his passion for brand storytelling. Recent work includes working on a new paradigm for a connected experience design for Lexus, a wearable platform and branding for Loopd, crafting a new design language for Pearl Izumi's running team, and designing headphones and interfaces for a VUI platform for OV.
Previously Greg was the global head of design & innovation at Sol Republic. Greg led the design team from day one, defining the brand with a small team and shaping product strategy through the growth phase to build a globally successful brand with a passionate following. Greg has been part of teams at Astro Studios, One & Co, Lunar, and Frog Design over the years. Before working in consumer electronics, he was nurturing his enduring love of sneakers as a footwear designer; at North Face in the advanced concepts group, and for New Balance.
Joe Hebenstreit
CEO, Shaper
2018 Commercial Equipment Jury Captain
Joe Hebenstreit is the CEO of Shaper, a human-involved robotics company focused on dissolving barriers between human intuition and machine tool automation. Shaper’s Origin is a handheld CNC router that employs computer vision and real-time positional motor control to auto-correct for imprecise hand movements and enable entirely new fabrication possibilities. Prior to Shaper, Joe led the Product Design & Engineering team responsible for Glass hardware development at Google X. He began his engineering career in the automotive industry before earning his product development stripes at frog while tackling projects across a wide range of industries including medical devices, wearables, home appliances, industrial equipment and consumer electronics. His reputation for shepherding new technology out of the prototyping lab and into consumer products led him to Amazon’s Lab126 in its earliest days of hardware development. At Amazon, he helped usher enabling technologies like touch interfaces and front-lighting to generations of Kindle e-readers.
Gretchen Anderson
Head of Design, PG&E
2018 Commercial Equipment Jury Member
Gretchen spent the first part of her career in design consulting for firms like frog, Cooper, and LUNAR. Currently, she is head of design at PG&E, California’s largest energy company where she’s helping to build the energy company of the future. Previously, she led the design of the hardware and software of a next-generation surgical system and was VP of Product at GreatSchools.org.
Gretchen is a frequent speaker on design topics including the changing role of design in the age of artificial intelligence and bridging physical and digital design. Gretchen has also taught design methods and design thinking in a variety of settings including Stanford and UC Berkeley.
Her past clients include Virgin Records, Samsung, Johnson & Johnson, and Starbucks. Gretchen is a Bay Area native who left only long enough to get a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in History & Literature.
Kiefer Limeback
CEO, Limeback Group Inc, Limeback media, @toolaholic
2018 Commercial Equipment Jury Member
Early on, Kiefer started his career as a professional remodel contractor in Toronto, where he developed his skill using tools and equipment ranging from hand tools to large scale heavy machinery.
When Instagram was in its infancy, he started a page (@toolaholic) where he could discuss tools and techniques amongst the community to better the industry. This quickly blossomed into more detailed media and articles, landing him partnerships with some of the largest names in the industry. He currently works with leaders in power tools and construction products such as Milwaukee, Dewalt, Festool, Fein, Makita, and many more, developing and testing new tools and jobsite solutions. He also writes for publications such as Fine homebuilding and Canadian contractor magazine.
His media company serves an as outlet to show the world the latest in power tools, and also to product detailed content to help our younger generation learn more about tools and techniques.
Andy Logan
Founder & Creative Director, AWOL Company
2018 Commercial Equipment Jury Member
Andy Logan is the Founder and Creative Director at AWOL Company, a small but mighty Southern California-based product design agency. AWOL specializes in award-winning design that challenges assumptions, grows market share, and delights users. A veteran of California’s top consultancies, Andy’s 20-year design career resume includes both BMW/Designworks and frog design, leading creative teams to tackle challenges in the Consumer, Industrial, and Medical categories.
With a strategic design philosophy, he has helped businesses as varied as HP, Nike, John Deere, Proctor & Gamble, Turtle Beach, Welch Allyn, AutoDesk, and SanDisk better connect with their customers through amazing design. Most recently, he installed a kick-ass zip line in his backyard for his three daughters.
Spencer Wright
Proprietor, ThePrepared.org
2018 Commercial Equipment Jury Member
Spencer Wright is a writer, operator, and mechanical designer living in New York City. At theprepared.org he runs a weekly newsletter on manufacturing, logistics, and the business of hardware product development. By day he works on industrial 3D printing software at nTopology.
With a formal education in English syntax, Spencer built his project management experience in construction, learned to machine and weld building custom bicycle frames, and cut his engineering teeth designing structural and actuator assemblies for robotic sliding doors.
Tom O'Connor
Industrial Designer, PDT
2017 Commercial Equipment Jury Captain
Thomas O'Connor is an awarded Industrial Design consultant who thrives at the intersection of business, technology and user-centered design. He began consulting for PDT in 2010 where he's led multi-disciplinary teams ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. PDT is a Chicago based product development consultancy specializing in fast moving, regulated and complex industries ranging from medical devices, aerospace, consumer electronics, laboratory equipment and tactical communication devices.
Thomas has consulted for clients including AbbVie, Hospira, Smiths Medical, Harris, Thermofisher, Siemens, Bosch, 3M, Weber, McDonalds and Intel.
Most recently Thomas spent 4 months working in Shanghai as a consultant for Sinowell. Thomas led research and product development to help bring innovation to the commercial horticulture and hydroponics industry. Sinowell is a manufacturer and wholesaler of horticulture and hydroponics equipment.
Thomas is active in the Chicago start-up community, serves as a judge in Chicago's Tech Week Launch Competition and is an Industrial Design mentor at University of Illinois at Chicago.
Thomas grew up in the Motor City and received his BFA in Industrial Design from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.