It is with much gratitude and admiration that we celebrate the jury alumni members of the Core77 Design Awards.
After earning her Bachelors in Graphic Design from North Carolina State University, Kirsten started her career as an Experience Designer at Second Story Interactive Studios where she did work for cultural clients including the World of Coca-Cola, the College Football Hall of Fame, and the National Archives. She then moved in-house to the Art Institute of Chicago as one of the founding members of the Experience Design studio, initially recruited to lead the strategy and discovery work for the website redesign. Kirsten eventually became Creative Director, Visual Design where she led all visual design and design strategy work in the digital, print, brand, and environmental workstreams. After six years at the museum, she joined Fjord's midwest team to expand her service design capabilities. Outside of work, Kirsten is passionate about her art practice, rockhounding, birding, and cultivating a native prairie landscape in her backyard.
Michael Correy is an Associate Director, Creative Strategy at Code and Theory where he applies human centered research and design methodologies to uncover challenges and create thoughtful, engaging experiences.
In a previous life, Michael was a Principal Designer at Chicago based design agency IA Collaborative.
Michael originally hails from Indianapolis but currently lives in Brooklyn. He truly is a believer that immersive and empathetic research is vital to strategic, equitable and impactful design solutions. If you happen to ever encounter him in the flesh, start the conversation off with the Muppets, basketball, or 90s R&B music.
Chris Lezama is an experience researcher and former non-profit administrator with a deep interest/background in design research and social impact strategies.
Charley is a creative executive building value at the intersection of human behavior and technology. He sees his job as helping energize digital teams to imagine strategically; think laterally; and create efficiently. Charley has led cross-functional teams building digital products and communications for Fortune 500 clients such as Adobe, Microsoft, Charles Schwab, Comcast, Disney, Lucas Film, and Intuit. He learned his craft at world-class agencies like Ogilvy, Razorfish, the Amp Agency, CP+B, and now Brooklyn-based, Small Planet.
Michal is the VP of Product at Hero, aiming to help people manage their health better, and live their lives to the fullest. She is passionate about solving hard problems that make a difference in people’s lives, and in a career of over 15 years, led UX and product across Google, Verily Life Sciences, Zoox, modu and more. She authored the book "Designing Multi-Device Experiences" (O'Reilly Media) and several other publications, mentored dozens of startups, and spoke at local and global conferences. Also the mom of two toddlers, an avid audible listener and a big fan of live music shows.
Karina Totah works to achieve greater equity in our cities and our healthcare system. Currently, she is Chief of Staff at Thyme Care, a startup that guides cancer patients through the complex healthcare system by providing personalized support, quality resources & quick access to high-value care. Prior, she was head of strategy for New York City Public Housing, the largest residential landlord in North America. Karina also practices as an end-of-life doula through her company, Nevit (www.nevit.net).
Natasha specializes in human-centered design research and strategy. She is passionate about creating services, experiences, environments, and products that help people live better, healthier, and more fulfilled lives in a rapidly changing world.
In 2017, Natasha founded the design and innovation strategy consultancy Blumline, where she and her teams blend creative and scientific research methodologies to catalyze radical and compassionate innovation. Blumline's goal is to shift perspectives and behaviors around ambiguous landscapes like the future of health and wellness, the age of autonomy, and mindfulness in the digital age.
Natasha's service design experience rests at the intersection of mobility, wellness, health, hospitality, and retail for clients including Postmates, Volkswagen, Livongo, Singapore Airlines, Lincoln, and emerging brands in the boutique hotel industry.
Tracy DeLuca is the Founder of How Might We Design, a mental health-focused creative consultancy. Recently, as the Principal Design Lead for Sutter Health, Tracy helped launch a series of successful innovation initiatives across the system, including a new virtual-first primary care model that integrates behavior change into everyday care, supported by a more accessible value-based insurance experience. Additionally, she was Design Lead for Sutter’s Mental Health Reimagined initiative, where her work focused on a human-centered deep dive into the Acute Care experience, and strategic development of an engagement platform to support youth transitioning out of formal care back into their everyday lives. Prior to her healthcare industry experience, Tracy spent 7 years at global design firm IDEO, as a Communications Design & Project Lead, and 10 years in advertising.
As Principal Director, Markos leads the Design Research Practice at frog San Francisco. His expertise lies in understanding people – their behaviors, needs, aspirations and interactions – and translating insights into a foundation to build strategy, products and services experiences for global markets.
Markos has over 15 years of experience in running design programs across a range of sectors, for clients such as Audi, BMW, Procter and Gamble, Coca-Cola and LEGO and launching new offerings. He has a strong focus on the mobility sector, having helped clients create new car platforms and build sustainable mobility services in China. Prior to frog, he worked at Designit, where he held the role of Global Research Lead and ran the Service Design practice.
Markos has a background in Social Sciences and Business and hold Masters degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of Leeds as well as Bachelor’s degree from the University of Aberdeen in the UK.
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.
Bo is a product leader, writer, and angel investor. She is currently director of product at Bravely, building a human-centric and behavioral-driven platform that helps people find meaning in their professional lives. At Tumblr she redesigned the core creative tools, and at Facebook launched Facebook Notes and Instagram monetization tools. She has helped organizations scale from series A to IPO at Sunrun and Opower. She writes and speaks about product management, liberal arts thinking, and diversity and inclusion. Her work has been published in the Atlantic, New York Times, and Fast Company. She is passionate about leveraging her product background to help founders as an investor and product advisor. She tweets at @bosefina and writes on Medium.
Chiara has been working as a product manager for the past 5 years but she’s a service designer by training. She currently leads two teams at Workplace by Facebook (Facebook’s internal communication platform for companies). Like most PMs she has quite a diverse background: before Facebook she was a service design consultant, a pricing marketeer and a tutor at the University of Bologna (Engineering). She also designs and produces her own clothes in her spare time.
Chiara holds a BA in Communication Design and a MSc in Product Service System Design both from Politecnico di Milano. She’s fluent in Italian, English and Spanish.