Tiange Wang is an award-winning and internationally-exhibiting designer and creative technologist. Her work investigates innovative interactive paradigms among humans, technology and the environment. As a designer-developer hybrid, she enjoys designing novel experiential futures as much as bringing them to life, integrating interaction design, software prototyping, storytelling and system thinking into a cohesive, full-stack design process. Tackling subjects like climate change, holistic wellbeing, multisensory experiences and speculative futures, she employs mediums including multimodal interaction, creative data visualization, multimedia art, installation, food, mix-reality, software, AI and games.

As a Software Design Lead at IDEO, she leads teams in crafting human-centered, planet-conscious, data-informed and GenAI-enabled product experiences across web, mobile and spatial computing platforms. She guides clients through transformative journeys across industries such as health, climate, media, technology, and consumer products, taking ideas from 0 to 1 and transforming them into market-ready products.

Her work has received numerous prestigious awards and been showcased at prominent venues like SXSW, SIGGRAPH, and CHI, presented at institutions including Stanford, Harvard, and the MIT Museum, and featured in leading outlets such as Fast Company, Dezeen, and others.

Tiange holds a Master of Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with High Honors from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jaka Neon is a passionate design director at Bird Buddy, where creativity meets innovation to redefine birdwatching. With a sharp eye for aesthetics and a deep understanding of user-centered design, Jaka leads a talented team in creating visually stunning and intuitive products that reconnect people with nature in the backyard.

Jaka’s career has been defined by a commitment to combining form and function, blending cutting-edge design with sustainability. A natural leader and collaborator, Jaka thrives on transforming ideas into impactful experiences, ensuring every project resonates with its audience while maintaining the highest standards of quality.

Outside of work, Jaka enjoys exploring art, fashion, ikebana making, and the simple joys of observing nature—a personal passion that aligns seamlessly with Bird Buddy’s mission.

Iyang Huang is a creative technologist and cofounder of VLab, whose work delves into emerging design trends and innovative opportunities arising from generative AI and creative programming. Iyang is passionate about connection with nature and how design can foster authentic experience to promote wellness. His projects span interaction design, multi-sensory data experiences, speculative spaces and industrial design with a specialty in visual storytelling.

Crystal is an experiential designer, educator, producer, and artist with a deep passion for world-building through immersive design. Her background in illustration and animation gives her a unique approach to visual storytelling, shaping engaging and interactive experiences across various mediums.

Pedro M. Cruz explores nature-inspired metaphors to portray data and information through design. He is an Associate Professor in the Art + Design Department at Northeastern University, teaching Information Design and Data Visualization. Cruz co-directs the Co-Lab for Data Impact and is a core faculty member of the Center for Design. His work has been featured in prestigious venues such as the London Design Biennale, MoMA, CES, the Museum of the City of New York, the Ibero-American Biennale of Design, SIGGRAPH, the IEEE VIS Arts Program, the ALIFE Conference on Artificial Life, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, FACTT Festival of Art & Science, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and in the Information is Beautiful Awards. Additionally, Cruz's work has been showcased in several popular magazines including Fast Company, WIRED, National Geographic, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and Business Insider.

Before joining Northeastern, he was a PhD student at the Computational Design and Visualization Lab at the University of Coimbra in Portugal, where he earned his PhD in Information Science and Technology. He was also a visiting PhD student at the MIT Senseable City Lab in Cambridge and was a research assistant at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. During his studies, Cruz regularly collaborated with the design studio FBA in Coimbra.