It is with much gratitude and admiration that we celebrate the jury alumni members of the Core77 Design Awards.
Dylan Buffington is an experienced creative professional in design and marketing with over a decade of industry experience. He started his career as a freelance designer, working with clients from various industries to develop branding, marketing collateral, and industrial design. Later, he moved to a full-time role as a Lead Creative at Specialized Bicycles, where he honed his skills in visual communication and brand strategy. Dylan has been serving as Creative Director for various companies, focusing on creative leadership and management, developing high-performing projects from concept to completion, and creating innovative marketing campaigns that drive business growth.
Currently, Dylan is the US Marketing Manager at Pas Normal Studios, a leading Danish cycling apparel brand. He is responsible for developing brand, retail, and activation strategies. Dylan's expertise in design and marketing, combined with his passion for the industry, has allowed him to drive business success and push the boundaries of what is possible. He is a skilled communicator and collaborator with a deep understanding of the power of design to connect with audiences and drive business growth.
Hannah June Lueptow is a design researcher and strategist at Questtono in Brooklyn, New York. She utilizes in-depth user engagement to solve experience based design challenges across a wide spectrum of product categories. Excited about understanding people’s relationship with the products around them, Hannah works to develop empathetic user experiences in disruptive tech spaces. Hannah has conducted international research projects in India, China and Indonesia and has worked with companies such as LG, Ford, Anheuser-Busch InBev, leading mixed reality companies, and more. In her spare time, Hannah designs and slipcasts functional objects out of her Brooklyn-based ceramic studio.
From prototyping on the shop floor to Vice President of Teague, Lindsey Maxwell holds over twenty years of experience in the aerospace industry. Lindsey leads an interdisciplinary team of over 125 researchers, designers, and engineers at Teague’s Aerospace Studio, and she has been integral in taking the company’s legacy of human-centered design in aviation and expanding it to urban air mobility, space habitats, space travel, and other passenger experiences.
Lindsey is an art lover, design nerd and travel aficionado. But above all, she’s passionate about people. Her greatest strength is building deep partnerships with industry leaders to shape the future of their business and utilize design to create competitive advantage.
Lindsey holds the position of Board Chair of IDSA, the most established Industrial Design Association in the world. Prior to being elected Chair, she was the Co-Chair of the National Women in Design Committee for IDSA. She cares deeply about elevating women in the design industry and continues to support IDSA Women in Design, as well as her own group, Women in Design Executive Team, which offers camaraderie and support for women in design leadership.
Outside of work, Lindsey enjoys being on or near water, remodeling her 1950’s midcentury home, and movie night with her husband and two kids.
Mollie Cohen D'Agostino's work focuses on the 3 Revolutions in Transportation: vehicle sharing, electrification and increased automation. These forces are profoundly changing how we travel and may cause unknown changes to traffic congestion, equity, air pollution, and energy use. Ms. D'Agostino leads the policy outreach component of the 3 Revolutions Future Mobility Program at UC Davis. Her work aims to convey academic research findings to inform policy makers and practitioners. She leads the annual 3 Revolutions Policy Conference, legislative briefings, and other outreach events, as well as leading in the publication of policy briefs and issue papers. She has also spoken at dozens of external events and conferences to represent the 3R Program and has provided expert testimony to the California Senate Transportation and Housing Committee.
Her prior work spans several sectors and includes environmental policy, community development and transportation planning. She worked with the California League of Conservation Voters, the City of Oakland’s Department of Housing and Community Development and the Alameda County Transportation Commission. She carries a Master’s in Public Policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, and a B.A. in Political Science and the Program for the Environment, from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Ms. D'Agostino has a dual position in the Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the Economy, and at UC Davis and the Institute of Transportation Studies, at UC Davis.
Demian Horst is since 2009 Programme Director for Transportation Design at Umeå Institute of Design (UID), Umeå University, Sweden. UID provides one of the world’s most highly ranked design educations and Demian started in his current position as the youngest director for a masters programme in the history of the school. Prior to this he has worked several years at General Motors in Germany, had a strong cooperation with Saab Automobile during his master studies, developed applied research together with Volvo Truck Corporation and also dedicated a few years in his early career to designing busses and coaches. Demian holds an MA from UID in Sweden and a BA acquired in his native Brazil.
At the Umeå Institute of Design he is also a member of the leadership group, holding strategic collaboration matters as his main responsibility. Being very aware of the importance that transportation has on quality of life, his task is to promote the generation of new knowledge on the subject and to continuously develop the best conditions to educate highly skilled, responsible and creative transportation designers for the industry of the future.
Francis Pollara is a strategy and innovation executive known for leading transformative work for industry-leading organizations spanning across the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Prior to co-founding Urban Movement Labs, he joined Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office as the entrepreneur-in-residence tasked with establishing a model and organization that could augment city governing authority to design and deploy transportation tech solutions in real urban conditions. Francis is an investor and four-time founder with expertise in scaling organizations commercializing products, and establishing structure in startup and core corporate management functions. Francis holds an MBA from USC’s Marshall School of Business and a Bachelor of Fine Arts double major in Product Design and Digital Media from Art Center College of Design.