It is with much gratitude and admiration that we celebrate the jury alumni members of the Core77 Design Awards.
Ye-Jeong Kim is a Korean-born, US-based principal designer and UX leader who has continuously navigated IC and management paths across her career. Currently, Ye is leading Gmail UX at Google. In her time at Google, Ye led teams and efforts building products in the areas of Search, Assistant, Android, Geo, Payments, Social, and Ads. As a founding member of Google Now, Google Assistant, and Search’s innovation and strategy UX team, Ye has extensive experience building assistive experiences and molding innovative technologies to help people in their everyday lives. Prior to Google, her focus was on information visualization and building tools for people to collaborate and make sense of data through shared visualization of information and understanding. Ye appreciates her name to be pronounced Yay!, pronounced with a ghost of joy!
Shel is Co-Director of Design Thinking for Ford. Her role is to grow the capability, its tools and mindsets, across the company. Her work has also touched the Maverick, New F150, Mach-E and more. She has practiced human centered design and creative leadership for 25 years, with side hustles in performative art and music, community development, and a social benefit company. She often takes on transformation roles where the playbook has yet to be written. Shel is committed to inclusion and anti-racism in all its forms. She advocates a post-scarcity mindset, collaboration, curiosity, reflection, rest, and joy.
Jennifer Kinon co-founded OCD | The Original Champions of Design with Bobby C. Martin Jr. OCD has developed brand identity systems for clients that range from the Girl Scouts of the USA to The New York Times, MTV and the NBA. During 2016, Kinon served as Design Director of Hillary for America. She has spoken about the role of brand identity systems around the world and served as President of AIGA/NY. Kinon graduated from the University of Michigan and earned an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, where she was the first graduate of the program to join its faculty.
Folake Knudsen is a Product Designer at Workday in Copenhagen where she is focused on Peakon, a platform for measuring and improving employee engagement, inclusion, and growth.
Previously, Knudsen has worked at Bang & Olufsen, where she was responsible for the consumer-facing mobile app and software/hardware interactions, BMW, helping to build its connected mobile app for its fleet of luxury vehicles.
Knudsen previously earned a Master’s degree in Human-computer interaction from DePaul University.
Bethany Koby is a mom, designer, educator and the co-founder of Technology Will Save Us. Technology Will Save Us is on a mission to spark the imagination using hands-on technology. Their beautifully designed DIY Gadget Kits and digital resources are the most accessible way to make, play, code and invent with technology.
Kristin is a product designer based in New York. Before transitioning into a product design role, she worked as a User Experience Researcher at Facebook and Refinery29. She is passionate about mission-driven technology and in her free time volunteers as a designer for Tech of Campaigns, an organization that connects tech workers with state-level political campaigns.
Elisabeth has a special regard for universal design principles and sustainable efficiency. Her favorite part of the design process is front-end problem solving through ideation, especially CAD. Right now she is on a mission to bring medical products into the home for anyone to use.
Industrial design, creative director and explorer.
For the past decade she has worked on award-winning products ranging from consumer electronics, to lifestyle accessories, lighting and more.
Her personal work is in the permanent collection at Moscow Design Museum, and has been exhibited internationally. It has been featured in Dezeen, Fast Company, Architectural Digest, Milk Decoration, Ignant, Wallpaper*, Yatzer, Fubiz, Interni, Domus, Mocoloco, Elle Decoration and beyond.
For three years Katerina has been working as a Senior Designer at Fuseproject where she focused on innovative product categories and sustainable manufacturing. Recently she left Fuseproject to build a design consultancy that helps novel ideas and technologies become adoptable, desirable, and human.
Founder and Partner of Studio Korjan, Ahmedabad, Dinesh is one of the pioneers of Product Design practice in India. He complements his practice with active engagement in academics and teaches at many leading design schools including Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar, National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, Srishti School of Art Design & Technology, Bangalore, IICD. Jaipur, School of Interior Design, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, Pearl Academy of Fashion, Jaipur, FLAME, Pune. He has also been conducting design workshops in India and abroad.Dinesh believes that Design is finally about re-arranging information flows. He has, for the last two decades, been persuading Indian industry to invest in design for long term returns rather than write off design spending as an expense.He is currently an advocate of Plan Dûthe effort to find design solutions for real world problems.
Nalini P. Kotamraju is Vice President of User Research & Analytics at Salesforce, where she leads a cross-disciplinary team that drives insights for product design and development. She loves using data in all of its forms to create the best product experiences possible. Previously, she led user experience research at Microsoft Dynamics AX, Sun Microsystems Inc., and assorted dot.com companies. Nalini also worked in Denmark and the Netherlands as a professor of technology and society.
Nalini earned her a B.A. in Social Studies and her B.A. in Women’s Studies from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley.
Irina Kozlovskaya is a director of industrial design at Fitbit, where she leads a team of designers creating products that help people live healthier, happier lives.
Irina is driven by the conviction that collaboration and a human-centered approach are fundamental to good design, which, at its core, is simple, helpful, and enduring.
Prior to joining Fitbit, Irina worked with a broad range of companies, as well as founding a New York City based design consultancy, Vim & Vigor. Her client list includes global brands such Nest, HTC, Kitchenaid, Martha Stewart, and Barnes & Noble, as well as multiple startups.
The daughter of two architects, Irina grew up in Saint Petersburg, Russia before moving to the United States to study at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Her work has been recognized by Red Dot, IF, ICFF Studio, IDEA, and Spark awards.
Irina is a vice chairwoman of Women in Design San Francisco.
Jim Kraimer is Director of Industrial Design for EMEA & China at Crown Equipment Corporation, which is a leading manufacturer of lift trucks and related products and services. Jim likes to dig deep into research and leverage new technologies that reimagine a new user experience. A key example is Crown’s QuickPick Remote® -- the world’s first glove-controlled order picker vehicle -- which is ushering in a new era of game-changing automation. Crown has won over 100 major international design awards and was recognized by Fast Company Magazine as Thirty Companies that Get Design. Prior to Crown, Jim developed futuristic products for Electrolux’s visionary Concept Design Team, and also worked at design consultancies in the USA and Germany. Jim holds 18 utility patents and has been a juror for Core77, iF Design and China Red Star Design awards. He studied Industrial Design under the tutelage of Paul Down, FISDA, at the University of Notre Dame.
James is an end-to-end problem solver, ultimately bringing products and experiences to market that connect emotionally with people and have real, lasting meaning. He focuses on gaining empathy for the end-user and is happiest when developing products with beautiful aesthetics that are just right for their place in the world. James has more than 15 years of experience designing in the consumer and enterprise electronics, CPG and healthcare industries. Currently, James is helping make the revolutionary real at Aruliden. Prior to Aruliden, James was disrupting the world of oral care as the director of Industrial Design and packaging at quip. These days, his passion is leading and empowering teams of designers to do the best work of their lives.
Mechanical Engineer based in Greenville, South Carolina. He began his career in industry specializing in thermal design for high-performance lighting fixtures. Today, he serves as a Technical Marketer for Autodesk, focusing on Fusion and Inventor, where he blends engineering expertise with product storytelling to support customer adoption and innovation.