Jury Alumni

• 

  Stuart Harvey Lee

  Founder, Prime Studio

  2023 Commercial Equipment Jury Captain

  Stuart Harvey Lee is the Founder of Prime Studio, a Product + Brand design consultancy based in NYC. He started his career as a Mechanical Engineer working in a steelworks before discovering his passion for Industrial Design whilst earning his Masters Degree at the Royal College of Art.
  
  He moved to New York in 1991 and cut his teeth working at both Smart Design and Able Design before founding Prime Studio in 1998. At Prime, Stuart is fortunate to work with a wide range of clients from global companies like Unilever and Bayer to startups like Harry’s and Welly. Most importantly he relishes designing products which make a meaningful difference to people’s lives.
  
  When he’s not designing Stuart can either be found challenging himself to ride the hills of the Hudson Valley on his favorite bike or desperately trying to cultivate his asparagus bed.

• 

  Mark Hatch

  Chief Executive Officer, TechShop

  2015 Open Design Jury Member

  Mark is CEO and co-founder of TechShop and a recognized leader in the global maker movement. Under his leadership, TechShop revenue grew 20-fold in five years and multiple new locations have opened across the US. Mark has held executive positions at firms including Kinko's, Avery Dennison and Health Net. In 2013, his book The Maker Movement Manifesto was released by McGraw-Hill Education. He has been recognized by San Francisco Business Times as one of the Bay Area's Most Admired CEOs and by Popular Mechanics as one of 25 movers and makers who are reinventing the American Dream. Mark has spoken at events such as SXSW, Techonomy, TEDx and The Clinton Global Initiative. A former Green Beret, Mark holds an MBA from the Drucker Center at the Claremont Graduate University.

• 

  Erik Haug

  Founder & Chief Vision Officer, LIGHT CoCreative

  2024 Sustainability Jury Member

  Erik Haug is the Founder & Chief Vision Officer of LIGHT CoCreative, a global innovation and impact collective.
  
  Alongside a dynamic network of talent at LIGHT, Erik is focused on community-driven solutions to major global issues and basic human needs:
  • Food
  • Water
  • Livability • Energy
  • Air
  • Care
  
  LIGHT has a range of core capabilities and codified consulting offerings including deep research, human- centered design, strategic visioning, technology enablement, stakeholder engagement, thought leadership and facilitating win-win-win partnerships across value chains.
  
  The core objective of LIGHT is to cultivate more collaboration, inclusion, sustainability, trust, collective action and long-term value creation in the private sector.
  
  Prior to LIGHT, Erik was the CoFounder & CEO of a venture-backed social technology startup — dedicated to building community and bringing people together in-real-life.
  In his consulting career, he has led dozens of strategy, design and innovation projects with leaders at top organizations including Deloitte, Nike, Intuit, Cisco, Lowe’s, Masdar, Li & Fung, Visa, AirBus, DHL, NEOM and Stryker.

• 

  Joe Hebenstreit

  CEO, Shaper

  2018 Commercial Equipment Jury Captain

  Joe Hebenstreit is the CEO of Shaper, a human-involved robotics company focused on dissolving barriers between human intuition and machine tool automation. Shaper’s Origin is a handheld CNC router that employs computer vision and real-time positional motor control to auto-correct for imprecise hand movements and enable entirely new fabrication possibilities. Prior to Shaper, Joe led the Product Design & Engineering team responsible for Glass hardware development at Google X. He began his engineering career in the automotive industry before earning his product development stripes at frog while tackling projects across a wide range of industries including medical devices, wearables, home appliances, industrial equipment and consumer electronics. His reputation for shepherding new technology out of the prototyping lab and into consumer products led him to Amazon’s Lab126 in its earliest days of hardware development. At Amazon, he helped usher enabling technologies like touch interfaces and front-lighting to generations of Kindle e-readers.

• 

  August Heffner

  Creative Director, Instrument

  2021 Interaction Jury Captain

  August is a designer and creative director. He works to bridge the divide between the functionality of digital products and the emotion of brand marketing. He began by leading internal design teams at MoMA, J. Crew, Kate Spade, & Casper. He’s been a regular contributor of editorial illustrations to The New York Times and an instructor at Parsons and SVA. August transitioned to digital product design and began leading project teams for Huge, and Work&Co. Today, August leads a team at Instrument where he creates digital first brands, marketing, and products for organizations including Twitter, PATH and the WNBA.

• 

  Sarah Hemminger

  Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Thread

  2015 Design Education Initiative Jury Member

  Sarah Hemminger co-founded Thread with her husband Ryan Hemminger in 2004. She has eleven years of experience in nonprofit management and expertise in the development, expansion, and replication of innovative, paradigm shifting models of mentoring. Sarah has a deep understanding of the challenges that face students in successfully completing high school and accessing higher education, as well as the potential for students and volunteers to change not only their own lives but also create a positive and lasting impact on those around them. Sarah was awarded fellowships from Ashoka, Echoing Green Foundation, Open Society Institute, and the Albert Schweitzer Fellows Program, which support social entrepreneurs with innovative ideas. In 2010, Sarah received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University for her work on the role of the cerebellum and the primary motor cortex on the time scales of consolidation of motor memory.

• 

  Scott Henderson

  Principal, Scott Henderson, Inc.

  2024 Lifestyle Accessories Jury Captain

  Scott Henderson is an American designer, artist, writer, and curator from New York City where he has risen to the pinnacle of his profession as one of the world’s leading industrial designers.
  
  Scott has designed iconic, best-selling products for companies including OXO, Microsoft, Krups, Intel, Skip Hop and Alessi, and over fifteen of Scott’s products have been best sellers at the Museum of Modern Art's MoMA Design Store. Scott believes that the goal of good design is meet the mind of the user with unimpeded flow.
  
  Scott has spoken about design throughout the world; he has won over fifty international design awards including a 2023 Red Dot Award, he has represented the United States as their Design Ambassador, he has chaired the International Design Conference, and his work is included in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum and the Alessi Museum.

• 

  Scott Henderson

  Founder & Principal, Scott Henderson, Inc.

  2024 Tools Jury Captain

  Scott Henderson is an American designer, artist, writer, and curator from New York City where he has risen to the pinnacle of his profession as one of the world’s leading industrial designers.
  
  Scott has designed iconic, best-selling products for companies including OXO, Microsoft, Krups, Intel, Skip Hop and Alessi, and over fifteen of Scott’s products have been best sellers at the Museum of Modern Art's MoMA Design Store. Scott believes that the goal of good design is meet the mind of the user with unimpeded flow.
  
  Scott has spoken about design throughout the world; he has won over fifty international design awards including a 2023 Red Dot Award, he has represented the United States as their Design Ambassador, he has chaired the International Design Conference, and his work is included in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum and the Alessi Museum.

• 

  Inigo Hernandez-Ysasi

  Co-Founder, Casa Ysasi

  2023 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Iñigo Ysasi is a co-founder at Casa Ysasi; a Los Angeles-based creative studio with an emphasis on light.
  Iñigo self-taught designer constantly experimenting with new mediums from wood to neon all the way to concrete. He is driven by curiosity and the combination of nontraditional materials in new formats. He moved to LA back in 2016 to join a large technology company while simultaneously pursuing a creative profession in his free time. He worked for a furniture company before co-founding Casa Ysasi with his brother Patricio Ysasi in 2020.
  

• 

  Patricio Hernandez-Ysasi

  Co-Founder, Casa Ysasi

  2023 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Patricio “Pato” Ysasi is a co-founder at Casa Ysasi; a Los Angeles-based creative studio with an emphasis on light. Patricio is a Los Angeles-based art director and filmmaker whose work explores the intersection of photography, film, and text. Since graduating from Cornell University, Patricio has worked in collaboration with Farm League, MACRO, and Tortoise.

• 

  Scott Hickman

  Creative Director, Coca Cola

  2024 Built Environment Jury Member

  Scott creates design-driven experiences and environments for the best-known brands in the world. He leads teams that specialize in experience design, digital media, architecture, place making, interactivity, environmental graphic design and fabrication to develop branded environments that are multi-sensory and nontraditional. Scott is a tech-savvy storyteller that connects brands to massive markets with immersive digital and physical interactions. His journey has taken him from boutique West coast studios to global East coast agencies, and he is currently the Creative Director for the World of Coca-Cola, a first-mover in branded spaces.

• 

  Nessim Higson

  Executive Creative Director, WeTransfer

  2021 Visual Communication Jury Captain

  Nessim Higson is the Executive Creative Director at WeTransfer, where he is in charge of the creative brand, identity, and visual language of the company. He was previously the Web Design Director for Squarespace helping oversee the continuing development of the platform and brand, and how it can be a leading force in championing creativity globally. He helped lead the charge on innovation within SQSP through helping establish their web concepts team and oversaw the rebrand of the company in 2019.
  
  Prior to joining Squarespace, Nessim lived and worked in Amsterdam for 6 years and has continued to run his independent studio IAAH / iamalwayshungry working with a range of clients such as Adidas, The Criterion Collection, DC Comics, TED, Google, and a wide range of global advertising and design agencies.
  
  Nessim is a firm believer that great communication can not only shift the economic marketplace but has a responsibility to contribute to the social fabric of society.

• 

  Alice Hines

  Writer

  2019 Built Environment Jury Member

  Alice is a writer in New York City. She contributes essays, criticism, features, and interviews to the New York Times, Bloomberg, and New York Magazine, and other publications. Alice also copywrites for fashion brands and startups.

• 

  Yuka Hiyoshi

  Designer, MillerKnoll

  2024 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Yuka is a Japanese industrial designer based in Michigan. She has over fifteen years of experience designing and consulting for companies in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. She is lead designer at MillerKnoll’s Tailored Studio.

• 

  Hanah Ho

  Senior Art Director, The New York Times

  2021 Interaction Jury Member

  Hanah is a designer residing in Brooklyn, New York. She is currently a senior art director at The New York Times, developing campaigns and visual identity for podcasts and audio. Previously she was at the branding and design agency Champions Design, and Hillary for America where she worked to elect the first female president. She is currently serving on the board of AIGA NY and is passionate about connecting designers with new opportunities and engaging in the design community. She holds a BFA in Communication Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

• 

  Phu Hoang

  Founding Director, MODU

  2020 Personal Accessory Jury Member

  Founding Director and studio alchemist, Phu Hoang and has led MODU since its founding in 2012. Along with Rachely Rotem, he was awarded the 2017 Founders Rome Prize in Architecture, since 1897 an annual prize to those ”who represent the highest standards of excellence in the arts and humanities.” Phu has led the design of many projects in MODU, including the Exhale art park and the Promenade retail and office center. They have also been awarded the Emerging Voices award from the Architectural League of New York (2019) and the US-Japan Creative Artists fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (2018).