Jury Alumni

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  Stephanie Aaron

  Vice President, J.P. Morgan Chase

  2024 Interaction Jury Captain

  Stephanie Aaron is a design lead at J.P. Morgan Chase where she focuses on making things simpler for employees and customers every day. She has previously worked at quite a few large financial firms and the New York Federal Reserve. She ran her own design firm for more than a decade, with clients including The American Museum of Natural History, Citibank and Barnes & Noble.
  Outside of work she is North America regional coordinator for IxDA.
  A native New Yorker, she holds a BFA from the Cooper Union and an MFA in Interaction Design from the School of Visual Arts. In her free time she can be found with her nose in a book and a 62-pound pit bull on her lap or in a kayak on the Hudson River.

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  Kim Bost

  Product Design Manager, XD Leadership Team, Netflix

  2023 Interaction Jury Member

  Kim is a seasoned design leader and has worked at companies like The New York Times, Etsy, and Dropbox. She brings a unique blend of passion and strategic thinking to create industry-defining experiences. As part of the XD leadership team at Netflix, she collaborates with a stunning team of designers to entertain the world.
  

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  Raquel Breternitz

  Design Leader and Strategist

  2022 Interaction Jury Captain

  Raquel Breternitz is an award-winning design leader + strategist with a resume spanning service with the USCIS and as Elizabeth Warren’s Design Director to private sector credits at the New York Times, Pivotal Labs, and IBM. She has also spoken at Lesbians Who Tech, PluralSightLIVE, Wonder Women in Tech, and O'Reilly Design.
  
  Raquel’s work and speaking topics are connected by a passion for accessibility and inclusion, research-driven design thinking, and a hunger for tackling complex and challenging problems. She believes in strong, empathetic leadership for empowered, creative design teams. Outside of her day job, she loves to write, illustrate, make comics, and take pictures of her cat.

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  Jenifer Bulcock

  Founder/Owner, Peoplemade LLC

  2024 Interaction Jury Member

  Jeni is an experience design strategist based in New York City. Born and raised in Australia, she established a design business at the age of 24, which thrived in Australia and Canada before she embarked on a new journey in New York City a decade ago.
  
  Driven by a keen interest in strategic decision-making, Jeni transitioned into design and research roles within consultancy and in-house settings. Her experience encompasses both Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX), where she has spearheaded strategic design initiatives and digital transformation programs across various industries. Her portfolio boasts an array of national and global brands, including Samsung, Meta, Square, IKEA, AIG, Better.com, and KraftHeinz, among others.
  
  In January 2023, fueled by her entrepreneurial spirit, she founded Peoplemade LLC, a Service Design and UX Research consultancy.
  
  Outside of work, Jeni finds joy in taking her dog on long walks and hosting dinner parties featuring seasonal produce sourced from farmers' markets.

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  Alex Wilcox Cheek

  Design Manager, Google

  2024 Interaction Jury Member

  Alex Wilcox Cheek is a New York-based designer. For more than ten years, he taught in the School of Design, College of Humanities & Social Sciences, and Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon. His courses blended design, architecture, technology, and the humanities, reecting his cross-disciplinary approach to his practice. In that time, he spun o a number of start-ups including Classroom Salon, Macromicro, and Skale. Alex has long been involved with the Interaction Design Association, co- founding the rst chapter in the Middle East, IxDA Doha, and later serving as local leader for New York City. Today, he leads a design team at Google.

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  Aric Cheston

  Assistant Vice President of Design, AT&T

  2020 Interaction Jury Member

  Aric Cheston is a product and service designer living and working in Austin Texas. He is currently the Assistant Vice President of Design at AT&T where he leads a multidisciplinary team focused on large scale transformational projects encompassing all aspects of the business. Previous to AT&T, Aric co-founded the experience design firm, Big Tomorrow, served as Executive Creative Director of Frog Design, and was a partner in the storied brand advertising and marketing firm Kirshenbaum Bond Partners. He has worked with clients across industries, most notably, BMW, HP, Disney, Comcast, and The University of Texas.
  
  Aric holds an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design.

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  Daniele Codega

  Design Director, Work & Co

  2019 Interaction Jury Captain

  Daniele Codega is a Design Director at Work & Co, a nearly 300-person technology and design company with offices in the US, Brazil and Europe. The company partners with Apple, Lyft, Epic Games, Equinox, Mailchimp and others to define and launch digital experiences people love using every day.
  
  Daniele’s known for working with clients on the strategic and systematic design of large-scale digital products. He has extensive experience working at the intersection of physical and digital, media, and luxury for companies such as Apple, Gucci, Samsung.
  
  Prior to Work & Co he was a Product Design Director at Elephant, leading design for various Apple projects. Earlier, he led digital product design for Gucci, Samsung, Reuters, and Huffington Post.

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  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.

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  Nick de la Mare

  Managing Director, Head of Design for North America, Fjord

  2020 Interaction Jury Captain

  As a Managing Director and Head of Design for Fjord (a part of Accenture Interactive) in North America, Nick is responsible for leading the Region in the pursuit of paradigm-shifting, impact-driven digital and physical design that breaks new ground for clients and contributes to positive systemic change around the world.
  
  Prior to joining Fjord, Nick was Partner and co-founder of Big Tomorrow, an experience design agency focused in healthcare, education and entertainment, and an Executive Creative Director at the global innovation and design firm frog, where he led their flagship San Francisco studio.
  
  He received a Master's degree in Industrial Design from Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA in Graphic Design from Syracuse University.

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  Lyanne Dubon

  Creative Director, Etsy

  2021 Interaction Jury Member

  Lyanne Dubon-Aguilar is a designer and creative director specializing in brand identity at Etsy in Brooklyn, NY. At Etsy, she leads a team of designers in creating brand experiences that foster creativity, community, and Etsy's mission to Keep Commerce Human.
  
  Originally from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Lyanne has worked across a range of disciplines for The Museum of Modern Art, Pentagram, and Local Projects. Lyanne holds a B.F.A. in Graphic Design from The School of Visual Arts where she taught as an adjunct faculty member from 2014-2020.

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  Kristen Dudish

  Executive Director, The New York Times

  2019 Interaction Jury Member

  Kristen Dudish is an Executive Director of Product Design at The New York Times, where she leads teams in creating smart and meaningful digital experiences for both readers and newsroom creators. Previously, she was part of the product design teams at New York Magazine and The Knot. She got her start designing and illustrating greeting cards for Hallmark.

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  Carla Echevarria

  Vice President and Head of Creative, MakerBot

  2015 Interaction Jury Member

  Carla Echevarria is an award-winning creative director with a design background and a decade of experience in digital product development and advertising.She leads the creative team at MakerBot, overseeing user experience design, visual design and copywriting. Her team is responsible for how users experience MakerBot across all channels: brand identity, website and digital properties, online and print advertising, social media, events, promotions, packaging design, print collateral, MakerBot Retail Stores, and third-party retail. Before joining MakerBot, Carla led creative teams at the Facebook Creative Shop, Google Creative Lab and R/GA.She is also on the faculty of the undergraduate Graphic Design and Advertising department of the School of Visual Arts.Her work has won awards at the Cannes Lions, One Show, D&AD, Art Director's Club and the Webbys, and has been published in the AIGA Design 365, Creativity Review, Creativity Magazine and Communication Arts. She has spoken at various industry events, including SXSW Interactive, AIGA events and the FindSpark Creative Conference. She also serves on the board of directors for the New York chapter of the AIGA.

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  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.

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  Sara Gooch

  UX Design & Research Leadership Consultant, Measured Studios

  2020 Interaction Jury Member

  A design leader focused on health care, food, conservation, social impact and education, Sara believes design can help us shift our behaviors for good. She leads design challenges with empathy and a systems-based approach.
  
  Sara has spent over two decades designing for clients such as Kaiser Permanente, National Head Start Association, Ford Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund and Disney. In her early career, she led the design of a content management system for nonprofits and foundations. She's been part of leadership teams at Big Tomorrow, frog and most recently OpenTable, overseeing a team of 30+ researchers, writers, product and brand designers.

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  Romello Goodman

  Computational Designer and Educator

  2022 Interaction Jury Member

  Romello is a Computational Designer located in Washington DC. He believes that computers can make us more creative and that tool building can be a labor of love. In the past, he’s worked with software in various industries from media to aerospace and politics. Currently, he works on the Polaris team at Shopify and teaches in the Graphic Design department at MICA.

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  Eric Grant

  Creative Director, SapientRazorfish

  2017 Interaction Jury Captain

  As Creative Director for the SapientRazorfish Emerging Experiences group, Eric manages and inspires global teams that create groundbreaking, interactive experiences that live on screens, in physical spaces and among virtual worlds. Working with clients like Mercedes-Benz, Adobe, and T-Mobile, Eric's work focuses on compelling storytelling moments that create memorable and dynamic experiences.
  
  Prior to SapientRazorfish, Eric was Director of Brand Experience for Hot Studio in San Francisco before moving to New York to open its SoHo office. Eventually acquired by Facebook, Hot's user-centered design approach created a multitude of collaborative relationships with clients like Google, Gilt Groupe, eBay and Ancestry.com.
  
  Eric's work has earned him two ADDYs and Webby Honorees, and has appeared in Communication Arts, AIGA's annual Year in Design, PRINT Magazine and HOW Magazine. Before design, he studied public policy and worked in various levels of government and for several campaigns and political organizations.