Jury Alumni

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  Reid Schlegel

  Associate Design Director, Aruliden

  2022 Personal Accessory Jury Member

  Reid Schlegel is a NYC based Industrial Designer with a solid history working in the design consulting and education space. He is currently an Associate Design Director at Aruliden and previously worked at frog and SMART Design. As a design educator Reid teaches process drawing + digital visualization and Junior Year Studio at the Parsons School of Design and visits Universities to guest lecture and teach his design process methodologies. Additionally, Reid runs an Instagram account with 136k+ followers showcasing his work and other design related content.

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  Jordan Shade

  Design Program Lead for Offerings, IBM Consulting

  2022 Interaction Jury Member

  Jordan Shade is a designer, researcher and leader with a bent towards a business context. She has led work in enterprise design thinking, online learning, community building, the art of facilitation, transforming organizations, engaging experiences for local government, and creating insight-led strategy. She lives in Austin, TX and currently works for IBM. Her other projects include founding the group A Functional Democracy and its calling card 'zine: A Beginner's Guide to Local Government, as well as the art collective and podcast The City Says So with partner Hal Wuertz.

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  Hector Silva

  Executive Director, Advanced Design

  2022 Home & Living Jury Member

  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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  Pickett Slater Harrington

  Faculty, Masters of Arts in Social Design, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)

  2022 Design for Social Impact Jury Captain

  Pickett has spent his career igniting social change. He is the founder and managing principal at Joltage, a social change design firm that champions innovative solutions to social challenges, and serves as full-time faculty in the Master of Arts in Social Design (MASD) at the Maryland Institute of Art (MICA).
  
  Pickett has deep experience connecting and working with communities, for profit businesses, nonprofit institutions and government partners to address complex, systemic social issues.
  
  Pickett holds a Master in Social Work, with a concentration in organizations and communities, from the University of South Carolina. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife and two kids and enjoys woodworking, sailing and sci-fi.

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  Susan L. Sokolowski, Ph.D.

  Founding Director and Professor of Sports Product Design, University of Oregon

  2022 Sports & Recreation Jury Captain

  Susan L. Sokolowski, PhD is the Founding Director and Professor of the Sports Product Design Graduate Program, at the University of Oregon. She has over 25 years of performance footwear, apparel, and equipment design experience; working at Nike, Burton Snowboards, Fila, the US Department of Defense, and tech start-ups prior to coming back to academia in 2016. Her work is holistic in nature, where consideration of the user’s body shape/dimensions, performance, sport, materials, and styling are addressed to develop innovative solutions. She is specifically focused on issues surrounding design of products for underserved populations, including women and adaptive athletes. Susan has been recognized internationally for her achievements in design and innovation, including 40+ utility and design patents, awards from the United States Olympic Committee, Nike and Volvo, and featured product at the Design Museum London.

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  Kirsten Southwell

  Service Design Lead, Fjord, part of Accenture Interactive

  2022 Service Design Jury Captain

  After earning her Bachelors in Graphic Design from North Carolina State University, Kirsten started her career as an Experience Designer at Second Story Interactive Studios where she did work for cultural clients including the World of Coca-Cola, the College Football Hall of Fame, and the National Archives. She then moved in-house to the Art Institute of Chicago as one of the founding members of the Experience Design studio, initially recruited to lead the strategy and discovery work for the website redesign. Kirsten eventually became Creative Director, Visual Design where she led all visual design and design strategy work in the digital, print, brand, and environmental workstreams. After six years at the museum, she joined Fjord's midwest team to expand her service design capabilities. Outside of work, Kirsten is passionate about her art practice, rockhounding, birding, and cultivating a native prairie landscape in her backyard.

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  Omari Souza

  Assistant Professor, Communication Design, Texas State University

  2022 Design Education Initiative Jury Member

  Omari Souza is an assistant professor in the Communication Design program at Texas State University. He is the organizer of the State of Black Design Conference (online, April 2021). He previously organized and hosted a multipanel event titled "The State of Black Design" (online, Sept. 2020), which drew a live audience of 2,071 — the second-largest Livestream audience for an educational event in Texas State's history.
  
  Omari is a first-generation American of Jamaican descent, raised in the Bronx, New York. Before arriving at Texas State, he gained work experience with companies and institutions such asVIBEmagazine, the buffalo News, CBS Radio, and Case Western Reserve University. He earned a BFA in Digital Media from Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA in Design from Kent State University. Omari's research explores the idea of perceptions and how visual narratives influence culture — how we view ourselves and others around us.

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  Ryan Swedenborg

  Artist and Designer, Spotify

  2022 Interaction Jury Member

  Ryan Swedenborg is an artist and designer based out of NYC, where she currently works for Spotify. Her work takes the form of visual identities, applications, apparel, reports, celebrations, prints, sculptures, and paintings. Being a WNBA fan, collecting Reba merch, and wandering around New York are her hobbies.

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  Drue Thomas

  Product Designer, Netflix

  2022 Interaction Jury Member

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  Christel Thue Høgsted

  Senior Sports Apparel Designer, Pas Normal Studios

  2022 Sports & Recreation Jury Member

  Christel is currently a Senior Sports Apparel Designer at Pas Normal Studios in Copenhagen. responsible for the womenswear line. She received her MS in Sports Product Design from University of Oregon (2019), and previously came from a fashion background with a MA in Fashion Design from Designskolen Kolding (2009) and trained at the French fashion houses Chloé and Christian Dior Couture in Paris. She has worked in various creative fields from Apparel Designer, Costume Designer and Product Designer. She is passionate about women's sports apparel and strives to innovate within the space. She is also a ceramist, and her work has received recognition throughout Scandinavia and been published in lifestyle magazines: RUM International, ELLE Decoration, Space Magazine, Politiken, and Cover Magazine. Her work has also been profiled by Vitra and the Centre George Pompidou at Interieur Design Competition and repeatedly funded by the Danish Arts Foundation.

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  Frank Tjepkema

  Founder, Tjep

  2022 Built Environment Jury Captain

  Frank Tjepkema (born 1970) is a Dutch designer based in Amsterdam. He started his award-winning design agency Tjep. in 2001 and works in a broad variety of disciplines including sculpture, architecture, interior design, product design and jewellery. He has provoked audiences worldwide through his art and exhibition pieces, such as the Bronze Age Furniture, Recession Chair, Bling Bling and Oogst. Frank is an early collaborator of Droog and his work is part of the permanent collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Cooper Hewitt in New-York. Recently Tjep. has delivered a variety of major sculptural projects in public space such as Zwerm in Eindhoven and Air Cells in Amsterdam.

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  Frank Tjepkema

  Founder and owner, Tjep.

  2022 Built Environment Jury Captain

  Frank Tjepkema (born 1970) is a Dutch designer based in Amsterdam. He started his award-winning design agency Tjep. in 2001 and works in a broad variety of disciplines including sculpture, architecture, interior design, product design and jewellery.

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  Remi Versteeg

  Partner Architect, Beyond Space

  2022 Built Environment Jury Member

  Remi Versteeg is equal parts architect and entrepreneur. He founded his first company back in 2002 (many were to follow) and obtained his degree in architecture from Delft University. In 2016, he co-founded office for architecture Space Encounters. In 2021, he co-founded Beyond Space together with Stijn de Weerd. Remi is driven to innovate and always seeks to combine diverse perspectives to forge new connections and lead him down roads less traveled.

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  Boriana Viljoen

  Senior Interaction Designer, Fitbit

  2022 Health & Wellness Jury Member

  Boriana Viljoen is a hybrid UX/service designer with extensive experience in the wellness and health tech industry. Boriana utilizes a human-centered design approach to create experiences that aim to improve people’s lives. Based in San Francisco, CA, Boriana has a passion for displaying complex information in easy to grasp ways, simplifying complicated user interactions, and making digital products intuitive and appealing.

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  Robert Walker

  Director of Design, Advanced Mobility and Experience Studio (AMES), General Motors

  2022 Transportation Jury Member

  Robert Walker is a global automotive design and team leader. He has worked in the automotive design industry for 24 years as a designer, design manager, chief designer, and design director within multiple global automakers.
  
  Walker is currently the Director of Design of the Advanced Mobility and Experience Design Studio at General Motors Design Center, based in Warren, Michigan. As a global advanced design leader, he guides his team in developing what’s next - future automotive and new mobility projects positioned far outside the scope of existing vehicle programs. Prior to joining GM, Walker held the position of Director of Product Design at D-Ford, Ford’s Global Human-centered Design & Innovation LAB, leading the team in both physical and digital product/vehicle design. They challenged assumptions and questioned the status quo, translating human insights into near and far product concepts for the Ford and Lincoln brands.
  
  He also loves mentoring the next generation of automotive designers. As an adjunct professor at the College for Creative Studies (CCS), he teaches multiple automotive/new mobility and design theory courses.

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  Ian Yang

  Founder & CEO, Gantri

  2022 Furniture & Lighting Jury Captain

  Ian founded Gantri in 2016 to reimagine how design is developed, made and sold. After joining the San Francisco TechShop, he became fascinated with the potential of 3D printing and sought to build a new way for creators to bring original designs directly to consumers that’s simpler, more accessible and more sustainable.
  
  Prior to founding Gantri, Ian led product and growth at Lovely, a design-forward apartment rental marketplace that exited in 2014. He was also a business strategy consultant at OC&C, advising Fortune 500 technology and consumer goods companies.
  
  Ian graduated from the London School of Economics with honors in 2010. He was awarded Apartment Therapy’s Design Changemaker and House Beautiful’s 2020 Visionary.