Winterhouse Second Symposium on Design Education and Social Change: Participants

Through Mariana Amatullo’s leadership, Art Center is the first design institution to be affiliated as a non-governmental organization with several United Nations agencies and development organizations. The award-winning and tangible outcomes of the Designmatters portfolio unite educational objectives with advocacy and social innovation outcomes that are disseminated globally by Designmatters partners. Amatullo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina; she holds an M.A. in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of Southern California and a Licence en Lettres Degree from the Sorbonne University, Paris.

Scott is the author of three books, and has published fiction in respected literary journals. He is director and co-founder of Emergent Structures, a non-profit organization dedicated to the innovative reclamation of building materials through community collaboration. He is co-author of the masters in Design for Sustainability at SCAD, and holds a masters in Visual Communication from Pratt Institute. He is on the Georgia Board of Directors for US Green Building Council, the Committee for Healthy Savannah and the Chatham Environmental Forum.

Charlie Cannon co-founded the Innovation Studio at RISD to confront pressing issues of our day through interdisciplinary collaboration, social entrepreneurship and design research. The studio’s projects have been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rhode Island Renewable Energy Fund, the RISD Research Foundation and the City of Denver. Cannon is also co-founder of LOCAL Architecture Research Design, a design firm in Providence, Rhode Island that focuses on projects that develop and sustain local communities.

Lee Davis is a social entrepreneur and designer with over 20 years of experience in the international development, philanthropy and social enterprise fields, and co-author of several books on social enterprise and venture philanthropy. He is co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) and served for 15 years as co-CEO of NESsT, an international organization that has supported over 2500 social enterprises solving critical social problems across Eastern Europe and Latin America, and a 2004 winner of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Lee is a former Research Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where he was a Professorial Lecturer in Social Change and Development, and is currently a Social Enterprise Fellow at the Yale School of Management.

William Drenttel is a partner at Winterhouse, a design practice in Falls Village, Connecticut, focused on social innovation, online media, and educational institutions. He is also design director for Teach For All, an international education network. Through the Winterhouse Institute, he is leading a series of initiatives funded by the Rockefeller Foundation to develop models for design and social innovation. Drenttel is president emeritus of AIGA and a senior faculty fellow at the Yale School of Management. He is the editorial director of Design Observer, a leading website focused on design, social innovation, urbanism and cultural commentary.

In 2008, Liz co-founded Design for America, a new and rapidly growing organization for college campuses that inspires students to use design to create local and social impact. In the process, students prepare to drive human centered innovation throughout their careers. Previously, Liz taught at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (aka the d.school). In 2008 she completed a PhD at the Center for Work, Technology, and Organization and a MS in Product Design at Stanford University. She researches how work practices and technology influences innovation.

Phil is the graduate director of the School of Graphic Design at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, the largest private art and design school in the country. Prior to the Academy, Phil was communications director at Turner & Associates, and director of creative services for EAI/Atlanta (now known as “Unboundary”). Phil also works at setting the agenda for sustainable business practice within the design community. He founded Compostmodern, a design conference devoted to sustainability, and is a co-author of the Living Principles for Design, a comprehensive framework to guide the development of sustainable design solutions. Phil also serves as a national board member for AIGA.

Cheryl Heller is chair of the new masters program in Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts in New York, founder of Heller Communication Design, and board chair of PopTech, a thought leadership conference and social innovation accelerator. She is a pioneering communication designer and business strategist, who has led transformational initiatives for entrepreneurs, corporations and non-profits.

In the past year Terry led a series of faculty retreats to develop a new mission/vision for the school which places design for the society and the environment at the heart of the curriculum. Previously Terry was a founding partner of the international firm MetaDesign and adjunct faculty at California College of Arts and Crafts, San Francisco. In 2004 she completed an MSc in Holistic Science at Schumacher College in Devon, England where she later joined the faculty to teach design to biologists, ecologists, sociologists and activists. She is a PhD researcher in the Natural Design Group at Dundee University, Scotlandern California and a Licence en Lettres Degree from the Sorbonne University, Paris.

Debera Johnson founded the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation, and the Center for Sustainable Design Studies. She is a graduate of Pratt’s Industrial Design program and currently serves as Pratt’s first Academic Director for Sustainability. Her aspiration is to provide opportunities for creative people to collaborate around socially responsible projects that get implemented. She teaches in the Industrial Design and Environmental Management programs at Pratt. Debera is also leading the Pratt Academic Leadership Summit on Sustainability (PALSS), a collaborative group of "fellows" appointed by the presidents of 35 independent art and design colleges throughout North America who will be focusing on the sustainability and future of are and design education.

Wendy is innovating curriculum in interaction design at California College of the Arts and Stanford University. She is the founder of Ambidextrous Magazine, which examines the broader social and ideological context of modern day design practice. Wendy was also the chief instigator of the Transformative Design course at the d.school at Stanford. She holds a doctorate from the Center for Design Research at Stanford University.

Jon Kolko is the Executive Director of Design Strategy at Thinktiv, a venture accelerator in Austin, Texas. Jon is also the Founder and Director of Austin Center for Design, an educational institution teaching interaction design and social entrepreneurship. Jon is the author of the book Thoughts on Interaction Design, published by Morgan Kaufmann, and Exposing the Magic of Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis, published by Oxford University Press.

Julie Lasky is the editor of Change Observer, a web site that focuses on design for social innovation and is a channel of Design Observer. Prior to that position, she was editor-in-chief of I.D., the award-winning magazine of international design, and of Interiors magazine, which she led to several national honors. She was also managing editor of Print magazine. Lasky is a widely published writer and critic, and the author of two books on design, including Some People Can’t Surf: The Graphic Design of Art Chantry. She recently joined the MFA design criticism faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts.

Marcia Lausen is founder of the Chicago office of Studio/lab and Director of the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Marcia helped to initiate Design for Democracy, a strategic program of AIGA that seeks to improve the quality and clarity of government communications. Her book, Design for Democracy: Ballot + Election Design, was published in 2007 by the University of Chicago Press. Marcia received her MFA in graphic design from Yale University. She was named a FastCompany Master of Design in 2004.

Paul McKinley is a graduate of the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Program at the Yale School of Drama. He teaches courses in Yale's Theater Studies Program, and is currently working on a course on the aesthetics of everyday life. As the dean of Saybrook College, he serves as the primary adviser to 500 students pursuing a liberal-arts curriculum, often with a focus in the arts.

Philadelphia University charged with strategic direction for a socially networked college integrating 18 existing programs. As an extension of this she created an immersive design thinking-based, business program on disruptive business model innovation. DEC launches in Fall 2011 and will address big, messy complex problems in our VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world such as access to water, energy, etc. Previously, Heather served as an advisor for Climate Smart, which offers proprietary software tools for tracking carbon emissions and as associate director of the Center for Design and Business at Rhode Island School of Design. Heather studied Industrial Design from Rhode Island School of Design and has an MBA from Babson College.

David Mohney is the co-author of three books: Seaside: Making a Town in America, The Houses of Philip Johnson, and The Louisville Architecture Guide; he is working on a book about contemporary design In Rotterdam. David has taught at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and SCI-Arc. He was educated at Cranbrook School, Harvard College and Princeton’s School of Architecture. David was the Founding Secretary of the Curry Stone Design Prize, a global award for design ideas that promote a better world, and he is presently forming a consortium of international design schools focused on Social Urbanism.

Caroline Payson, currently Director of Education at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, has an extensive background in arts education, and was formerly director of educational services at Maryland Public Television, where she oversaw a $10 million grant to create the “Thinkport” education super-site. She has also led education initiatives using web-based resources to improve reading instruction, distance learning courses and school curricula. A former chair of liberal studies at Parsons School of Design, Payson holds degrees from Johns Hopkins and Sarah Lawrence.

Since 2007, Natacha Poggio has been developing strategic design projects that promote sustainable development and awareness of global issues. Her research fosters interdisciplinary partnerships that bring positive social change at local, national, and international levels. She is the founder of Design Global Change, a collaborative of students and alumni helping local and international communities through service-learning projects. As the 2010 recipient of a Sappi Ideas that Matter grant, she spearheads a project promoting gender equality in India. A native of Buenos Aires, she holds an MFA in Design from the University of Texas at Austin.

Mark Randall is a principal at Worldstudio, a New York City firm that adheres to the philosophy of “doing well by doing good.” Worldstudio has actively developed projects at the intersection of design, education and social change. Their landmark college scholarship program offers financial support to design/arts students that incorporate a social agenda into their work. In 2009, Worldstudio launched Design Ignites Change in collaboration with the Adobe Foundation. Mark is the co-founder of the graduate-level summer program Impact! Design for Social Change at the School of Visual Arts.

Arvi can be found in San Francisco working at Weymouth Design. He co-chairs and is the designer of Sappi’s Ideas that Matter program, the graphic design industry’s only grant program aimed at helping designers to contribute their talent to charitable causes. Arvi is also a board member of AIGA San Francisco and the chapter’s Social Impact Co-Chair. One of its lead initiatives is the "cause/affect" design show which celebrates the work of designers and organizations that positively impact our society.

Design Criticism where, following a year of research, she developed “Design Crusades: A Critical Reflection on Social Design,” a masters thesis surveying the social design practice in the US. She hails from Lisbon, Portugal, where she currently heads international communications at the EXD’11/LISBOA design biennale. Vera is a consultant at Superscript in New York, and has written about design and architecture for Change Observer, Metropolis, Architect’s Newspaper, Proximo Futuro/Next Future and Arte Capital.

Jason Schupbach is the Design Director for the National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversees all design grantmaking and partnerships. Jason previously served as the Creative Economy and Information Technology Industry Director at the Massachusetts Department of Business Development, growing innovation industries in software, hardware, film, tv, digital media, videogames, design, advertising, music and publishing. He formerly was the director of ArtistLink, a Ford Foundation initiative to revitalize communities through the creation of innovative environments for creative entrepreneurs.

Previously the Co-Chair of the Tishman Environment and Design Center, which oversees the New School's Environmental Studies degree programs, Cameron came to the New School from Sydney, Australia where he was Director of Design Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, and Executive Director of Change Design, formerly known as the EcoDesign Foundation, a thinktank focused on design-enabled social change toward more sustainable futures. Cameron's current research concerns lowering societal materials intensity by decoupling use and ownership - in short, sharing.

Helen Walters is a writer, editor and researcher at innovation consultancy Doblin, part of the Monitor Group. A New York City-based journalist, with experience editing and publishing content across multiple platforms, Helen was formerly the editor of innovation and design at Bloomberg Businessweek. She is contributing editor at Creative Review magazine in the United Kingdom while she writes about creativity and design for numerous international publications, including Fast Company Design, Core77 and Design Observer. She regularly participates in discussions about the business of design at conferences around the world and curates the website, thoughtyoushouldseethis.com. She is the author of a number of design-related books. She tweets @helenwalters.

Mike is founder and director of the Center for Design Practice at MICA, a multi-disciplinary studio bringing students together with outside organizations to examine challenges facing our communities. This Fall, he launches MICA's newest graduate program, the Master of Arts in Social Design. Previously, he served as co-chair of undergraduate graphic design at MICA, partner/creative director at Atlanta-based Iconologic, and as a design consultant to the International Olympic Committee. In 2011, Mike was nominated for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum National Design Award.