Jury Alumni

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  Emily Privot McNamara

  Senior Researcher, Industrial Design, Amazon

  2021 Strategy & Research Jury Captain

  Emily Privot McNamara is a Senior Researcher on the hardware (ID) research team at Amazon, where she works on evaluating existing products and framing challenges around people’s behaviors and interests to identify new opportunities. Prior to Amazon, Emily's career began as an architectural designer working on projects ranging from high-end retail environments to local non-profit urban streetscape improvements. From there she pivoted into design strategy to create things on a faster timeline, and focus on work that applied user needs with business goals and the application of thoughtful design. She began her strategy career as an intern at fuseproject and graduated to hold the position of design strategist at Native Design and VBP Orange.
  
  Recently, Emily has been learning a lot about anthropometry and is applying her passion and specific interests in health/wellness and the older adult population to her work at Amazon.

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  James Pryor

  Creative Director, Touch

  2024 Home & Living Jury Member

  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.

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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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  Matt Pugmire

  Principal Industrial Designer, Logitech

  2021 Home & Living Jury Member

  As a Principal Industrial Designer at Logitech, Matt’s focused on crafting iconic new hardware designs and experiences with a diverse group of problem solvers that make up the gaming design team. Prior to Logitech Matt was an Industrial Design lead at NewDealDesign in San Francisco where he built creative partnerships and developed ambitious new product visions for tech startups and industry leaders such as Microsoft, Comcast, Herman Miller and more.
  
  When not working, Matt can be found appreciating the great outdoors with his three daughters in tow.

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  Pichaya Puttorngul

  Principal/Product Designer, Piece Company Limited

  2021 Home & Living Jury Member

  Pichaya Puttorngul is an independent industrial designer from Bangkok, Thailand. A hands-on practitioner with diverse experiences in Design Innovations, Material Experimentations, and Traditional Crafts.
  
  Through 18 years of industrial design experience, Pichaya collaborated with global and local innovators realising their visions for a positive future, producing award-winning designs with aspirations in longevity, sustainability, and beauty.
  
  Prior to his permanency in Bangkok, Pichaya was the design director of Fuseproject New York

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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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  Sasa Radulovic

  Co-Founder, 5468796

  2017 Built Environment Jury Member

  5468796 architecture is a Winnipeg-based studio established in 2007 by Johanna Hurme and Sasa Radulovic and joined shorty by the third partner Colin Neufeld. In the past [nearly] ten years the firm has achieved national and international recognition and its work has been published in over 200 books and publications. Project specific awards include Progressive Architecture Awards; Awards for Emerging Architecture & Future Project Award from from Architectural Review; Governor General Medals in Architecture and Awards of Excellence from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, as well as recognition as a finalist of IIT’s emerging MCHAP award on two consecutive years, to name a few. Firm recognitions include the 2014 Rice Design Alliance Spotlight Award, the RAIC Emerging Architectural Practice Award, WAN 21 for 21, as well as the Architectural League of NY Emerging Voices lecture series and the Design Vanguard issue of Architectural Record.
  
  5468796 makes design advocacy an ongoing pursuit through critical practice, professorships at the Universities of Manitoba, Toronto and Montreal; and through numerous public engagements. In 2012 5468796 represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in Architecture and in 2013 they were selected as recipient of the 2013 Prix de Rome Award in Architecture for Canada by the Canada Council for the Arts.
  
  In addition to practice Johanna + Sasa are activists and advocates. They are passionate about making architecture an integral part of broader culture by spearheading ventures like Table for 12 + 1200, Chair Your Idea and Design Quarter Winnipeg. Sasa is a member of the University of Manitoba Partner’s Program Executive Board and currently serves on the Presidential Advisory Committee for the selection of the Dean at the University of Manitoba.

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  Hassan Rahim

  Art Director / Designer, 12:01

  2019 Built Environment Jury Member

  Hassan Rahim is an artist and art director originally from Los Angeles, now working out of New York.

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  Alex Rainert

  VP of Product, Nucleus

  2016 Interaction Jury Member

  I've got 17 years of experience building teams and shipping products in wildly different creative and business environments - startups (co-founder @dodgeball, head of product @Foursquare), large tech companies (Google), digital agencies (R/GA, Razorfish) and an amazing tech-meets-art graduate program (NYU’s ITP).
  
  I'm currently leading Product at a NYC-based hardware + software company called Nucleus. We're building a smart intercom that will serve as the foundation for people to communicate seamlessly with the ones they care about the most — whether they’re in another room in the same house, in a completely different location (Hi mom!) or on the move on their mobile devices.
  
  You can learn more about the product at www.nucleuslife.com. I'm building up the product team so if you have any interest in designing an experience that will live at the center of families' lives, get in touch and let me know what excites you about it.
  

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  Nicola Ralston

  VP, Global Innovation Studios, Dell Technologies

  2022 Home & Living Jury Member

  Nicola is an accomplished Designer and Design leader with extensive experience building and leading design & innovation teams for global brands. Having had a Design Career in Automotive design working for brands such as Ford, Hyundai, and Kia she then moved on to Nokia inspired by their global reach and their way of connecting people. For Microsoft Windows and Devices group Nicola built and led a multi-disciplinary, human centered, design team across Design and Human Factors that worked to articulate disruptions, product, and experience opportunities with a focus on edge devices, and looking to ambient futures. Most recently, Nicola has joined Dell Technologies as VP, Global Innovation Studios, responsible for leading the Experience Innovation Studio teams that envision, define, and build differentiated customer experiences and proof of concepts, driving innovation and disruption across Dell’s business units and product portfolios. Nicola has worked and lived as a designer in the UK, Italy, Germany, Finland, and the US.

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  Sunita Ram

  Design Lead, Idean

  2020 Service Design Jury Member

  As a Design Lead at Idean (part of Capgemini Invent), Sunita has led hybrid design teams on projects across industries including healthcare, e-commerce, education, transportation, and technology. She thrives in bringing clarity to ambiguous problems. She has created and led initiatives like Design Thinking Academies for Executives and Kids, Design Jams for designers, and Culture Workshops for her organization.
  
  Sunita holds a Bachelors degree in Architecture and a Masters in Interactive Telecommunications from ITP, NYU.
  
  For the last decade, Sunita has also served as a design coach for Stanford d.school’s Extreme course. Here, she mentors graduate students who design low-cost, sustainable products and services for developing countries in partnership with non-profit organizations.
  

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  Fernando Ramirez

  Co-founder and Designer, Common Object

  2024 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Fernando Ramirez is a designer dedicated to exploring the intersection of sustainability and community and how it drives value in design. Specializing in industrial design, furniture design, and environmental design, he has left his imprint on diverse projects, collaborating with both major corporations and innovative startups. His deep commitment to sustainability propels him beyond conventional boundaries, driving him to explore pathways that lead into the realm of regenerative thinking.
  
  As a co-founder of Common Object, a design studio aligned with his values for people and the planet, Fernando has forged a path guided by these principles. At the core of his studio's philosophy is a "planet- centered" design approach, empowering companies to take steps toward sustainability while fostering more inclusive connections with people. Their versatile portfolio spans industrial, furniture, medical, and interiors. A notable aspect of their work involves community projects, actively participating in co-design workshops specifically crafted to empower and uplift communities.
  
  Common Object's experience in sustainability has led to the studio's regenerative design experiment, Okaterra—a project that focuses on creating regional supply chains that collaborate with farmers to create materials for furniture. Since its release, Fernando and his design partner, Justin Beitzel, have seamlessly integrated workshops and talks into their studio flow. They are diligently working to share this thinking and posing the question, “Can the future of product design be regenerative?”

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  Alisha Ramos

  Founder/CEO, No Plans, Inc. (Girls' Night In, Whiled)

  2021 Personal Accessory Jury Member

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  Veronica Ranner

  Designer | Artist | Ph.D. Candidate, Royal College of Art

  2021 Speculative Design Jury Member

  Veronica Ranner is an artist, designer and researcher, working transdisciplinary on the intersections of design, science and emerging technologies. With a background in industrial design and design interactions, her research focuses on the burgeoning domain of bio-digitality and encompasses advanced biomaterials (smart materials), biomedical product and interface design as well as the development of experimental methods towards constructive-collective modes of futuring (see Polyphonic Futures).
  
  Veronica has 10+ years experience of working internationally across science, education, art institutions and industry via funded projects, commissions and collaborations. She is a frequently invited lecturer and exhibits her work internationally, including at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, China Technology Museum in Beijing, the National Museum Sweden in Stockholm, the V&A London, the Design Museum Gent, at Martha Herford, and the Futurium in Berlin. She currently completes her PhD at the Royal College of Art.

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  Bret Recor

  Founder, Box Clever

  2020 Home & Living Jury Captain

  Bret is an expert in creating physical experiences that delight consumers and help companies lead market categories. Bret leads his Box Clever team to take ideas from concept to market and is committed to executing a challenge to its most brilliant realization. To do this, he balances creative vision with real-world experience of industrial design, brand strategy, and business ventures. Bret has applied his expertise to the launches of several high-profile products and initiatives, including Away, Nebia, and most recently Caraway. Bret has also launched separate studio initiated ventures including Fadestudio, with a flagship product, the Fade task light.
  
  Prior to founding Box Clever, Bret was a design director at fuseproject, working with clients like, One Laptop Per Child, Herman Miller, Johnson & Johnson, Issey Miyake, Jawbone, and the New York City Department of Health.
  
  Bret’s work has earned several awards around the world including INDEX, Spark, IDEA, iF, Clio, D&AD, FX, Spark, and Red Dot. His work is part of the permanent collections of NY MoMA, SFMOMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Centre Pompidou.

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  Gina Reimann

  Wearables Industrial Design Manager, Google

  2020 Health & Wellness Jury Member

  As Wearables Industrial Design Manager at Google, Gina leads a team making radically helpful products, bringing together the best of Google AI, software and hardware. Notable launches include Google’s headphone family and watch bands.
  
  Prior to Google, Gina has worked at the New York based innovation agency Redscout, Industrial Design agency Smart Design and Philips Design in The Netherlands.
  
  She’s designed for some of her favourite brands, including Nike, OXO, and Microsoft, and for which she has some fancy awards that decorate a shelf in her Santa Cruz Mountain home, where she lives with her wife and two cats.