Jury Alumni

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  Beau Perschall

  Director, Omniverse Sim Data Ops, NVIDIA

  2023 Emerging Technologies Jury Member

  Beau is a 30+ year 3D animation industry veteran and respected management professional with a long track record of delivering high-quality tools, services, and support on his partners' behalf. He's developed and maintained deep relationships with all of the major players in the 3D arena including NVIDIA, Amazon, Autodesk, Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Maxon, Epic Games, and Unity just to name a few, and has been deeply involved in helping bring standards to 3D over the past 20 years as part of TurboSquid, which was acquired by Shutterstock in 2021. He was instrumental in the development of both the CheckMate 3D modeling standard and StemCell initiatives to help train artists on how to create visual content in a more consistent and professional manner so it could be utilized in multiple projects easily. In his role at NVIDIA, he is building a new 3D content creation standard called SimReady to help ensure that 3D art assets can be utilized across a wide range of machine learning, AI and simulation platforms in a consistent and predictable manner.

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  Robert Pugliese

  Director of Innovation Design, Thomas Jefferson University

  2023 Health & Wellness Jury Captain

  Robert S. Pugliese is Director of Innovation Design at Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health where he co-founded the Health Design Lab, a creative space built to merge design-studio ethos with science-oriented discipline to foster innovation in healthcare. As somebody who enjoys empowering people to be change-makers in healthcare, Rob leads programs that train learners to be health design thinkers and innovators. A Doctor of Pharmacy, Rob spent over ten years practicing and teaching Emergency Medicine. He believes that including both the patient and provider voice is vital to healthcare design. He brings these perspectives to his work through his experiences as a clinician and as a person/cyborg who relies on technology to manage his insulin-dependent diabetes. Rob has presented on the intersection of healthcare and design at national venues such as SXSW and Stanford MedX. During the pandemic, Rob has used his unique experience to lead public health response efforts in response to community needs for testing and vaccination. In his spare time, Rob produces a weekly podcast and enjoys spending time with his wife and three daughters.

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  Li Qing

  Senior Industrial Design Manager, ASUS Singapore

  2023 Gaming Accessories Jury Member

  A veteran industrial designer, Li Qing has over 15 years of experience in product development, spanning design research to concept development and production. She has honed her expertise in varied industries, from consumer electronics to medical equipment.
  
  She spent the past 8 years working at ASUS Design Center in Singapore, probing the future and exploring next-generation computing and gaming experiences. Li Qing’s work centers around the ROG Gaming series, where she is focused on bringing innovative ideas and unexpected design solutions to the table to develop new creative visions that chart the path forward for her team.
  

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  Shawn Rickenbacker

  Assoc. Professor, Architecture, CCNY Spitzer School of Architecture, J. Max Bond Center for Urban Futures

  2023 Built Environment Jury Member

  Shawn L. Rickenbacker is a trained architect, urbanist and urban data researcher. He is currently the Director of the J. Max Bond Center for Urban Futures where he directs the Center’s sponsored and partnership research and is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the CCNY Spitzer School of Architecture. His research and work at the Bond Center confronts the complex urban intersection of spatial equity and the social and economic impacts of place-based policies, programs and design through the lens of urban data, forensic and design research. He’s served as Senior Research Fellow at the Phyllis M. Taylor Institute for Social Innovation, where he researched ‘Artificial Intelligence and The Future of Social Urbanism’, The Favrot Chair in Architecture at Tulane University, Gensler Distinguished Professor at Cornell University and Director of the Motorola Sponsored Future Interactions Lab at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Design. His work and research have been published in The New York Times, NY Daily News and Global Architecture, Wired and exhibited at Studio Museum of Harlem. Shawn holds a MArch with a Certificate in American Urbansim from the University of Virginia where he was the Dupont Scholar and a BArch from Syracuse University.

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  Mackey Saturday

  Principal, Mackey Saturday

  2023 Packaging Jury Member

  Responsible for some of today’s most ever-present identities-like those for Instagram, Oculus, and Affirm - Mackey has spent his career helping brands of all sizes become iconic through idea-driven strategy, elegantly simple design, and a relentless pursuit of enduring visual principles. After nearly a decade running his own studios in San Francisco and Denver, he became a Principal at Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv—the design firm responsible for classic logos including NBC, National Geographic, and Chase Bank. He now runs his namesake studio based in Brooklyn, focused on creating impactful visual identities across an array of industries both locally and internationally.

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  John Siczewicz

  Lighting & Compositing Artist, Skydance Animation

  2023 Emerging Technologies Jury Member

  An early adopter of digital content creation, John was at the forefront of technology in the late 1980s and 1990s. Utilizing platforms such as Quantel Paintbox and Kodak Cineon for high-end image manipulation, and soon embraced Discreet Logic’s (now Autodesk) Flame and Inferno systems.
  John found a home at the CGI pioneer Blue Sky Studios. Starting there with just a small handful of wildly creative thinkers and stayed on for twenty-six years until the studio’s closure in April of 2021.
  With close to 40 credits over the years, mostly in animated feature films, John has contributed to many of the family favorites that have entertained millions. He currently continues this path as a lighting and compositing artist at Skydance Animation.
  Always with an eye toward the future, he feels it’s essential to remain informed about emerging technologies and how they’ll affect and influence what we’re exposed to, and how we chose to access them.

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  Vincent Sin

  Executive Head, Industrial Design & Product Development, Secretlab

  2023 Gaming Accessories Jury Captain

  With over 12 years of experience in industrial design, Vincent is focused on bringing to life products that sit at the nexus of engineering and art, combining both elegant form and supreme functionality. He now leads all design at Secretlab, heading the development of the award-winning Secretlab TITAN Evo, MAGNUS desks, monitor arms, and more.
  
  Looking to the future for inspiration, he believes in constantly pushing the boundaries of design and engineering for Secretlab’s next generation of products. Today, Secretlab is at the vanguard of fast and evolving design trends in the gaming industry, leading the way with a relentless focus on improving performance through thoughtful design."
  

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  Rachel Smith

  Founder & Designer, Design to Combat COVID19

  2023 Health & Wellness Jury Member

  Rachel Smith is a Latinx Designer & Founder of Design to Combat COVID-19, a virtual community of creatives over 2,000 strong—who during the pandemic volunteered their skills and time to support underrepresented communities. By day, Rachel Smith is a Product Designer at Facebook, was formerly a Lead Mentor with The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and previously has worked with companies such as Nordstrom and The Home Depot. The rest of the time, the LA native works on a range of creative projects, both within her local and global communities.

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  Rotimi Solola

  Founder, SO Dsgn

  2023 Home & Living Jury Captain

  Rotimi Solola is an award-winning industrial designer and the founding partner of SO Dsgn, a Chicago-based creative agency focused on story-driven brand and industrial design. In addition, Solola is an educator, having taught at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago, he values mentorship, community, and design education. Prior to his current roles, Solola worked as a member of Motorola’s Consumer Experience Design team where he acquired much of his knowledge of bringing products to market. Solola stays involved with the design community by giving public lectures, judging design competitions, and mentoring students, and young professionals.

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  Jennifer Sterling

  Founder & Creative Director, Jennifer Sterling Design

  2023 Visual Communication Jury Member

  Founder of Sterling Design in 1996, Jennifer is a creative director, designer, animator typographer, illustrator, photographer, and educator. Her work is part the permanent collections of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Library of Congress, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Museum Fur Kunst Und Gewerbe, Hamburg and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art hosted a three-month solo show entitled "Jennifer Sterling: Selections from the Permanent Collection of Architecture and Design". The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museums Triennial Exhibit showcased the creative work of 83 designers and companies including Jennifer Sterling, Apple, Nike, and Martha Stewart.
  Her work has been featured in over 180 magazine and book articles, Graphis Magazine named her "One of the Top Ten Designers in the World." GD:USA Magazine named her one of the "Twelve Designers to Change Design into the Millennium". Clients and projects include creating an interactive online design to promote the worldwide distribution of aids awareness and medical distribution to third world countries for Yahoo Inc. as well as creating the worldwide brand "Vital Voices" for Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright. In 2016 she created campaign collateral for Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential Campaign. Jennifer has served as an adjunct professor at CCA (the California College of the Arts / San Francisco), AAU (Academy of Art University / San Francisco) and SVA (School of Visual Arts / New York).
  

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  Daniel Stromborg

  Product Development Design Director, Gensler

  2023 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  As Product Development Design Director for Gensler, Daniel applies his insights and industry experience to inspire design teams to translate Gensler’s voice and vision into tangible products for workplace and lifestyle environments. Partnering with manufacturers, his team creates touchpoints that expand the experience for which clients rely upon Gensler. He previously led design teams on projects with Arper, Andreu World, Devon&Devon, Elizabeth Arden, Emser, Estel, Fantoni, Gandia Blasco, Knoll, Muraflex, OXO, Targetti, Zumtobel, and many others.
  
  Daniel’s career began with digital imaging pioneer April Greiman, focusing on brand-based design and conceptual work. From there, he worked with legendary product designers Richard Holbrook and Don Chadwick until eventually striking out on his own. Daniel joined Gensler in 2014.
  

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  Joshua Taylor

  CEO, Product EVO

  2023 Commercial Equipment Jury Member

  Josh Taylor is the CEO of Product EVO, a surfer dude, and a secret weapon for overwhelmed founders and product managers. He believes passion without good strategy is wasted energy. So he's on a mission to make successful products predictable and repeatable. His approach is to align the product development process with first principles for demand generation.
  
  Through Product EVO, Josh has helped develop hundreds of products and solved countless product development challenges along the way. He's created a curriculum for lean market research and product strategy for high-growth companies with limited time and resources.
  
  Outside of Product EVO, Josh is a landlocked surfer. He moves abroad with his family in the summers to chase waves during the big wave season in Central America. He is always looking for ways to expand his thinking about what is possible for his life and take massive action to live that way.
  

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  Alvin Tham

  Industrial + CMF Designer, Bang & Olufsen

  2023 Gaming Accessories Jury Member

  An Industrial Designer based in Singapore, Alvin has over 18 years of experience crafting designs with small to multinational companies. His adaptability over the years has enabled his design experience to span across different and diverse design disciplines from industrial, packaging, and brand to CMF, producing multi-award-winning designs.
  
  When he was a brand consultant, he successfully helped rebrand, strategize, and improve brand equity for various companies in different industries. Prior to joining Bang & Olufsen, Alvin worked with other companies such as Philips and has collaborated with various automotive and lifestyle brands such as Aston Martin, Sony, and Balenciaga.
  
  He continuously strives to stimulate creative thinking, with unique and strategic ideas and solutions, applying them to his work to create inspiring and human-centric designs, focusing on emotive and experiential touch points.
  

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  Bas van de Poel

  Co-Founder, Modem

  2023 Speculative Design Jury Captain

  Bas van de Poel is co-founder at Modem, an office for design and innovation committed to creating experiences for a new world. Whether through research papers with institutions like MIT, Harvard GSD or UC Berkeley or its work with clients such as Nike, Google, Teenage Engineering, and OpenAI. Prior to Modem, Bas served as Creative Director at IKEA’s research and design lab SPACE10 where he led large-scale digital transformation and sustainability programs.

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  Avra van der Zee

  COO, Elemental Excelerator

  2023 Sustainability Jury Member

  Avra is a climate tech executive passionate about supporting innovative climate tech startups as they scale. She is an experienced advisor, organization builder, and board leader, including as Director of Made of Air. As the former COO & GC at micro-mobility company JUMP, she led the company from its early inception to its strategic sale to Uber. She is currently COO of Elemental Excelerator, a global, non-profit climate investor and impact organization with over a decade of experience investing in place-based climate technologies.

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  Sabina Weiss

  Designer and Researcher, Special Projects

  2023 Consumer Technology Jury Captain

  Sabina Weiss is an innovation designer focusing on products that help to channel meaningful experiences.
  
  Currently part of Special Projects, award winning innovation studio on a mission to enhance the unquantifiable aspects of life: empathy, wellbeing, delight, with meaningful design and invention.
  Working with brave companies to bring clarity to complex problems, discover new opportunities and transform them into tomorrow’s most loved customer experiences and products.
  
  Through her career, Sabina has contributed to several complex projects – strategically bringing to life brand values, physical and digital assets for companies: Google, Sony, Graphcore, Rolls-Royce, Hyundai Kia, Microsoft, Sabi and Fortnum and Mason.
  
  Sabina holds Innovation Design Engineering MA Royal College of Art / MSc Imperial College London; where her major project was a hybrid craft-technology interface that has received several accolades and exhibition features including Victoria and Albert Museum, Barbican Centre, and Somerset House.