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
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.
John and Wonhee Arndt
Partners, Studio Gorm
2018 Furniture & Lighting Jury Captain
Studio Gorm was founded in 2007 by John Arndt and Wonhee Jeong Arndt.
As professors in the Product Design department at the University of Oregon, they apply their insightful academic research on culture, history and technology to refocus modern design through the prism of time, exploring the transformation of objects and ideas as they evolve to fit the demands and expectations of modern life.
As designers of functional objects, they draw from their background in sculpture and craft to create works that balance function and aesthetics. Their methods are deeply rooted in the act of physical making where an object’s true form evolves out of an experimental constructive approach to design.
George Aye
Co-founder, Greater Good Studio
2018 Design for Social Impact Jury Member
George co-founded Greater Good Studio to use design to heal, to be just, to be restorative, Previously, he spent seven years at a global innovation firm before being hired as the first human-centered designer at the Chicago Transit Authority. Since founding Greater Good he guides clients and teams through complex projects that honor reality, create ownership, and build power. He speaks frequently across the US and internationally. George holds the position of Full Professor (Adj) at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sabiha Basrai
Co-Owner, Design Action Collective
2018 Design for Social Impact Jury Member
Sabiha Basrai is a co-owner of Design Action Collective — a worker-owned cooperative dedicated to serving social justice movements with art, graphic design, and web development. She is co-coordinator of the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, where she works with racial justice organizers on international solidarity campaigns. Sabiha is also part of the Center for Political Education advisory board, an affiliate trainer with Race Forward, and a faculty member in the University of San Francisco's Department of Art and Architecture.
Carl Bass
Self-unemployed robot builder and former CEO, Autodesk, Parts & Labor
2018 Open Design Jury Member
Carl Bass serves on the boards of Autodesk, Built Robotics, Formlabs, Planet, Zendesk and Zoox and serves as a special adviser to the CEO of Alphabet. During his 24 year tenure at Autodesk, he held a series of executive positions including president and chief executive officer, chief technology officer and chief operating officer. Bass co-founded Ithaca Software, which was acquired by Autodesk in 1993. Bass also serves on the boards of directors of Zendesk Inc. and Planet; on the board of trustees of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Art Center College of Design, and California College of the Arts; and on the advisory boards of Cornell Computing and Information Science, UC Berkeley School of Information, and UC Berkeley College of Engineering.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Cornell University. Bass spends his time exploring the intersection of art, robotics and machine learning
Dror Benshetrit
Principal, Studio Dror
2018 Built Environment Jury Captain
Dror Benshetrit is a designer, thinker, dreamer and futurist. He began his career as an artist and has since amassed an award-winning portfolio of product design, interiors, architecture, master planning and city planning—all before the age of 40. Together with his team of designers, artists, architects, researchers and communicators, he tackles ambitious pursuits to foster authentic connections and improve people’s well-being.
His holistic practice—named one of the most innovative companies in design by Fast Company—intentionally works across all scales, blurring boundaries with each project.
Studio Dror is one of the only practices to bridge Architecture, Design, and Art, and the results are always avant-garde: current endeavors include an innovation lab for the future of nature and humanity, large site-specific installations, a book entitled ‘Dror Dreams’, and The Lookback, an immersive entertainment venture replicating an astronaut’s experience standing on the Moon looking back at Earth.
Collaboration is the cornerstone of his approach: he partners with best-in-class specialists and brands and organizations that share the same spirit of innovation to test the limits of convention and bring profound ideas to life. As a result, Dror’s connections and network includes highly influential people in the worlds of Art, Real Estate Development, Fashion, Design, Academia and Politics.
Jason Busschaert
Director of Industrial Design, Stanley Black & Decker
2018 Open Design Jury Member
As Director of Industrial Design at Stanley Black and Decker, Jason's role is to provide global leadership in the definition, design, and development of industry leading power tools and outdoor power equipment.
Jason has been a catalyst, integrating new technology to support adjacent design functions all with a goal to optimize the user experience. These efforts further enhance and differentiate the strong brands of Stanley Black and Decker. Prior to working for Stanley Black and Decker, Jason started his career at Canadian Design Consultancy DW Product Development, working with and supporting various clients across a diverse set of markets and industries.
Jason has been recognized with several design awards, most recently receiving a 2015 IDSA IDEA Bronze award for DEWALT’s first entry into Professional Outdoor Equipment.
Ti Chang
Co-founder & VP of Design, Crave
2018 Consumer Product Jury Captain
Ti Chang is a design activist-entrepreneur and activist bridging modern design and activism. She is co-founder and VP of Design of CRAVE, a San Francisco-based company specializing in aesthetic pleasure products. Ti leads the design vision for the company’s full line of products which has won international design awards and has led CRAVE to mainstream partnerships with the likes of Nordstrom, MoMA Design Store, Goop, and Saint Laurent.
Ti is best known for her design of the Vesper vibrator necklace in 2014, an iconic necklace that symbolizes female empowerment and creating conversations to normalize pleasure.
Ti holds an M.A. in Design Products from the Royal College of Art in London and a B.S. in Industrial Design from the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 2021, Ti co-founded Design Allyship (designallyship.com) to provide anyone with actionable resources to improve the condition of historically marginalized designers in the industrial & product design industry.
Dan Chen
Engineer & Designer
2018 Design Concept Jury Member
Dan Chen is a designer and engineer. He communicates his ideas through working prototypes, investigating new ways of approaching user interactions.
He has several degrees including a MAS from MIT, an MFA in digital media from RISD and a BFA in communication design from UConn. He has over 8 years of design experience and now works at Culture Robotics as senior engineer. Previous positions include MIT Lifelong Kindergarten as an industrial designer. Johnson & Johnson as Senior Interaction Designer. Senior Interaction Designer at IDEO.
His personal work has been featured in CNET, The Huffington Post, the verge, Engadget, Mashable and Daily Mail. Dan was invited as a speaker at TEDx Vienna on the future of intimacy in 2016. His work was exhibited in Vitra Design Museum, MAK Wien, Design Museum Gent & Ars Electronica.
Working in the realms of robotics, communication design, interaction design and product design, Dan explores the new ways of communication and human experience through working prototypes and storytelling, inviting a reflective evaluation and implication.
Kareem Collie
Director of Design and Creativity, The Rick and Susan Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity, The Hive (at the Claremont Colleges)
2018 Design Education Initiative Jury Member
Kareem Collie is a designer, systems thinker and educator. Currently, he is the Director of Design and Creativity at the Rick and Susan Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity at the Claremont Colleges and Clinical Professor of Visual Communication at Harvey Mudd College. He is a former Teaching Fellow at Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (a.k.a the d.school) where he developed workshops and courses in human-centered design. His research focus is the intersection of design, visual communication, and critical thinking. He spent the first half of his career in branding and creative strategy. He received his MA in Media and Cultural Studies from NYU in 2016 and his BFA in Communication Design from Pratt Institute in 2001.
Lauren Currie
Head of Design, Good Lab
2018 Service Design Jury Member
Lauren is a European designer and entrepreneur from Scotland. She lives in London and spends her time as Head of Design at Good Lab and founder of #upfront. She makes, thinks, writes and speaks about confidence, design, social and change. She co-founded Snook, one of the UK's leading service design and social innovation agencies which uses design to make services better. Lauren was recently awarded an OBE for her services to design and diversity and was recently featured in ELLE UK as 30 women under 30 changing the world. Follow Lauren on twitter @redjotter and redjotter.com
Leslie Dann
Associate Partner, C&G Partners
2018 Interaction Jury Member
At the digital forefront for 25 years, Leslie started in information architecture at Nicholson NY, collaborating on award-winning CD-ROMs, museum kiosks, and early websites. Later, living in Madrid, she was a UX consultant for European technology giant Indra, on e-commerce and e-government projects.
As a former Assistant Director of User Experience at digital agency MRY, Leslie developed experience strategies and designed numerous user-centered interfaces for large websites and mobile platforms. Clients included Mass General Hospital, National Grid, Penguin, Google, Nestlé, MasterCard, Moleskine, and Johnson & Johnson.
Leslie is currently an Associate Partner at C&G Partners, leading experience design and media production for interactives, exhibits, and websites for museums, educational institutions, and non-profits. Her focus on user-centered design, human-interest stories, history, and culture motivate both her professions as a UX specialist and video producer, giving her the variety she loves in life. Leslie holds a bachelor's degree in graphic design, summa cum laude, from the University of Cincinnati.
Chi-An De Leo
Creative Director & Co-Founder, Rice Creative
2018 Packaging Jury Captain
Chi-An is a Creative Director and Co-founder of Rice Creative, a Vietnam based brand consultancy. As a true multicultural individual, with an Italian father and French-Vietnamese mother, Chi-An speaks 4 languages and has lived in 5 countries including a major stint of 10 years in the UK. Wanting to get back to his Vietnamese roots, he made the move back to the country where he spent the early years of his childhood. Chi-An worked at Lowe Vietnam and helped them set up the branding department. After a few years in Advertising he felt it was time to make a move back to Branding & Design and co-founded Rice Creative in 2011. Having won multiple international awards with Rice, such as Red Dot, Pentawards, A’Design, Graphis, The Dieline, and Type Directors Club to name a few, Chi-An was invited to take part in the world's most renowned creative awards in London, D&AD. He sat as part of the Branding Jury together with the creative directors of Apple & Moving Brands, judging some of the best work the world had to offer.
Marc Dones
Associate Director, Equity Initiatives, Center for Social Innovation
2018 Design for Social Impact Jury Member
Marc Dones has worked in program and policy development for their entire career. Currently their work focuses on the development and integration of equity oriented policies and program procedures across a number of projects. In this role Marc also leads the SPARC (Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities) Initiative. SPARC is currently focused on reframing homelessness response systems through an anti-racist lens. Additionally, Dones worked with a small team of C4 staff to build a training institute for over 300 provider agencies funded to work with individuals living with substance use disorders. Prior to joining C4, Dones served as a Program Manager in the MA Executive Office of Health and Human services where they assisted in the development and implementation of Governor Deval Patrick’s youth violence reduction program, the Safe and Successful Youth Initiative. Additionally, Marc served as the policy manager for the Massachusetts Special Commission on Unaccompanied Homeless Youth.
Shady Elias
Senior Designer, FCA US LLC
2018 Transportation Jury Member
Shady Elias is a senior designer in the Advanced Color and Materials studio at FCA US LLC. He is responsible for and provides input on all interior colors and materials used on Chrysler, Dodge and SRT (Street, Racing and Technology) vehicles. He also provides support for all exterior color and trim across those FCA US brands. As a senior designer in the advanced color and materials studio, he works side-by-side with interior and exterior designers, brand and materials engineering to develop new, innovative interior and exterior trims and finishes for each vehicle. Most recently, Elias worked on the all-new 2017 Jeep® Compass, Jeep Renegade and the Chrysler Portal concept vehicle.
Elias earned a Master of Science in menswear design from the Academy of Art, San Francisco, and a Bachelor of Business Administration from The American University in Cairo. Prior to joining FCA, Elias was a children and menswear’s designer and has worked for Levi Strauss & Co. on their Levi’s and Dockers brands. He has also designed for brands such as Janie and Jack and The Northface.
Yumi Endo
Lead Designer, Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX), United Nations OCHA
2018 Interaction Jury Member
Yumi Endo is a Japanese native, New York-based designer with a passion for art, design and technology.
She has previously worked as a design consultant at frog design in NYC, where she created meaningful product experiences for many internationally acclaimed clients including GE, Comcast, Nokia, Microsoft, Bloomberg, United Nations OCHA(Office for the coordination of humanitarian aids) and Rockefeller Foundation.
She currently works for United Nations OCHA’s humanitarian data sharing platform as a lead designer.
She is also an owner/creator of a jewelry brand, Cut by Yumi Endo which has been showcased in international art/design conventions including Maison et Objet in Paris, International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in NYC and Tokyo Design Week in Japan.
Yumi often likes to integrate three-dimensional effects in her 2D designs, creating unique visual and tangible experience.
Yumi holds a Master of Fine Arts in Design + Technology from Parsons the New School for Design and earned a Bachelor of Design with an honors degree in Product and Graphic Design from University of New South Wales, Australia.