It is with much gratitude and admiration that we celebrate the jury alumni members of the Core77 Design Awards.
Divya Chaurasia is an award-winning industrial designer, with a background in engineering. An expert in user-centered research, sustainable practices and design for manufacturing, she has a Masters in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute, New York and Bachelor’s in Technology from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India.
Currently, Divya works as a senior industrial designer and user experience lead at Spitfire Industry, a design consultancy based in Brooklyn, New York. She designs products and experiences for brands like Clorox, All Clad, Tefal, Bausch & Lomb, Cook’s Direct, Hunter Douglas, GoTrax, and Nectar. Divya’s work is inspired by the everyday pursuits of people. She is fascinated by the connection between humans, objects and environments, and captures this relationship in delightfully functional products. Her work has been exhibited at NYCxDesign and NYC Media Lab Annual Summit and received recognition by Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Award and International Design Awards.
Pinar Guvenc is a partner of SOUR, an international, award-winning hybrid design studio with the mission to address social and urban problems through sustainable, adaptive, and inclusive methodologies. They are doing so by active end-user involvement and co-creation sessions throughout the design process. In addition to managing the business operations, Pinar also leads strategic planning, design research, and partnerships of the studio.
Pinar is also part-time faculty at Parsons School of Design, School of Design Strategies, and serves on the Board of Directors of Open Style Lab, a nonprofit organization initiated at MIT, with the purpose of making style accessible to people of all abilities. She created and teaches a strategic collaborations workshop series for the Pratt Center for Community Development and the Made in NYC initiative. She is also the author and instructor of the Inclusive Design class for the School of Visual Arts MFA Interaction Design, which is the first multidisciplinary inclusive design graduate course in the United States.
Pinar is a frequent public speaker and a guest lecturer and hosts the panels and podcasts of What's Wrong With, a series of discussions and podcasts with progress makers and experts to diagnose real problems, ideate solutions, and raise awareness to the general public.
Pinar has a BSc in Industrial Engineering and MSc in Economics & Finance.
A proud native and longtime resident of Mexico City, Daniela Macías is an NYC-based global industrial design manager with 15 years of experience, leading the creation of global household and consumer products for Colgate-Palmolive. In her current role as an Industrial Design Manager, she is responsible for the design leadership of expert cross-functional teams working on packaging structures and brand experiences for Personal Care, Pet Nutrition, and Home Care brands that hundreds of millions of people around the world love and use daily.
Throughout her career, she has overseen the design process of bottles, caps, bar soaps, dispensers, soluble pods, and new experiences across a variety of users, categories, brands, packaging formats, scopes, and markets. Her professional journey—starting at one of Colgate’s manufacturing facilities, moving up to regional corporate offices in Mexico City, and elevated to a cross-category industrial design development role at Colgate-Palmolive’s global headquarters in NYC—has forged her as a resilient industrial designer with deep empathy for both the business side and the people she designs for.
James Pryor is the co-founder and creative director of Touch, an agency that stands at the forefront of sustainable innovation in packaging and product design. His agency collaborates with renowned FMCG brands like Mondelez, PepsiCo, Colgate Palmolive and Nestle, pioneering future-proof solutions for brand growth. James leads Touch's design and innovation team, managing everything from conceptual exploration to design for manufacture. He frequently liaises with clients, presenting Touch's latest works and proposals.
Under James's guidance, Touch has achieved significant milestones, including the award-winning Carlsberg Export redesign and the creation of Häagen-Dazs' Loop reusable packaging system. His commitment to sustainability has led to the elimination of thousands of tonnes of packaging waste and enhanced the recyclability and reusability of numerous products. James's innovative contributions are also evidenced by his numerous patents for major clients.
A passionate advocate for sustainable design, James is a regular speaker at global industry events and has contributed to the European Packaging Design Agency Boost Book. He holds a master’s in consumer product design from Coventry University and has a rich background in design and innovation, having worked with agencies like Impact, 1HQ and 3T.
Beyond his professional life, James enjoys travel, movies, reading, and photography. He is also an avid guitarist and musician. His greatest joy comes from spending time in the High Wycombe with his wife, Rachel, and their two children, Madeline and Michael.
Joo Young Lim is an Industrial Designer at Vanderbilt Home, a lifestyle product manufacturing firm based in New York City. As a designer, Joo Young specializes in studying people’s shifting lifestyles and using the findings to create useful designs for their various aspects of living, especially in cooking and entertaining. Joo Young draws inspiration from his experiences of multi-national upbringing and a deep interest in the history of home entertaining. He has over a decade of experience working in various categories, including food prep, tabletop, decor, organization, and pets.
Joo Young earned a BFA in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2010. Since then, he has held design director roles at Martha Stewart Living and Barkbox and a co-founder role at Gruppo Atelier Home.