Bio: Karen Baker is a weaver focused on design, history, and critical studies of textile and fiber in Washington, DC. She brings 25 years as an award-winning business owner and executive specializing in design research, strategic planning, and marketing. Karen taught for sixteen years in higher education and was part of the inaugural cohort for the MFA in Social Practice at the Corcoran School of Arts and Design. Karen received her B.A. in Political Science from Howard University, M.T.A. in Event Management from The George Washington University, and an M.A. in Design Management from Savannah College of Art and Design.

Research interest: Karen is researching the textile, fiber, and craft contributions and techniques of enslaved and free African American weavers before the Great Migration.

Bio: Meghan comes from the product innovation and technology startup realm, having worked as a user experience designer and entrepreneur in this space for several years. She earned a Master of Science degree in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management with a focus in User Experience Design and has since helped design and launch many digital products. Before specializing in user experience design, Meghan worked in marketing and as a graphic designer. She has an undergraduate degree in visual anthropology and women’s studies from The Evergreen State College and has previously been involved in reproductive health and birth work activism.

Research interest: Product innovation and human-centered design systems applied to improving quality of life; including the areas of maternal and infant health, food security, accessibility, and climate change.

Bio: LaShana Broussard-Morris,  a design entrepreneur, is the owner of Mpresion, LLC, where she creates “Beauty in Design” through customized digital and print materials for clients. Previously, she owned a bakery where she designed and prepared cakes and cookies from scratch. She started her career in finance.

A New Orleans native, LaShana draws inspiration from the architecture, music, food, and the melding of French, Spanish, and Caribbean cultures that are integral to her home city.  She earned her B.A. from Xavier University and her MBA from Meredith College. She and her husband, David, have 2 children, Victoria and David III.

Research interest: Solving the issue of access to distributors and end-users who may routinely bulk purchase wearables designed for the masses by design entrepreneurs and artisans.

Bio: Having grown up in the rural landscape of the Midwest US, Teresa developed a keen interest in the natural world and small towns.  After earning an MLA from the University of Michigan, she worked in an urban design firm in Ann Arbor to launch her landscape architecture career.  The firm focused on community engagement and public design (parks, downtowns and greenways). About 15 years ago, Teresa and her husband moved to Boone, NC for his faculty position at Appalachian State University. Finding herself once again living in a small town, which had no urban design firm, Teresa created her own in 2012.
Research Interests: Teresa’s research interests include how to adapt urban design and community engagement for rural areas and small towns.

Bio: Lee has software development & project management experience as a technical producer, interactive designer and information architect. He has designed large-scale media projects that leverage technology, user experience design and information graphics for such companies as AmericanExpress, Accipiter, Böwe Bell & Howell, GlaxoSmithKline, Grant Hill Ventures, IBM, NBC Sports and USTA. He has a BA in Industrial Design from the College of Design and a MBA in Innovation Management from the Poole College of Management. Currently Lee manages and supports the research efforts within the Experience Design Lab and facilitates daily activities within the Information Technology Lab at the College of Design.

Research Interests: Researching areas of Explainable AI and Understandable AI, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, IoT, Big Data and Data Visualizations;  examining the impact of close interactions between people and emerging technology by determining how empathy, trust and decision making processes are influenced when working with systems/frameworks that integrate and leverage intelligent agents such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Bio: Keith is a licensed architect from California. He received his Post-Master’s degree in architecture and urban design from Delft University of Technology and the Berlage Institute in 2014 and has since practiced in San Francisco. Outside of professional practice, Keith is the co-founder of Studio CRIT. The studio stresses architecture’s capacity as a multi-disciplinary practice with writing, research, and design intervention. The studio focuses on understanding spatial conceptualization and production related to the changing context of increasing globalization and the dispersal of local cultures.

Research interest: Keith’s research goal is to articulate and frame urban displacement and informal communities as a political form of extensive governmental apparatus to serve the displaced and self-governance of the unsheltered. The emergence of these atypical urban forms explicitly embodies human values and urban relations within the shifting environmental and socio-cultural contexts.

Bio: Carla Delcambre is the Director of the Graduate Program and a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at North Carolina State University.  She has been teaching for 13 years and is a registered landscape architect. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.

Before accepting a position at North Carolina State University she was a Senior Landscape Designer at OLIN in Philadelphia where she worked on a variety of project types encompassing urban design, master planning and public gardens.  Her passion in teaching is focused on digital representation, construction methods and ecological issues related to sustainable design, urban agriculture, stormwater management, and brownfield redevelopment. Carla is also the mother of two boys, who love to play in the landscapes she has designed.

Research area of interest: I want to research tactical, computer visualization tools which create immersive environments and identify best practices in sustainable design.

Bio: Melissa Eggleston is a design researcher working for the U.S. Digital Service, part of the Executive Office of the President. She also has her own consultancy, Birdcall, and teaches UX design classes for UNC-Chapel Hill and other groups.

Since earning her Master’s from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2009, Melissa has worked with organizations of all sizes – from global nonprofits to new startups. Her most meaningful projects included those where she designed for survivors of interpersonal violence, sex trafficking, and substance abuse disorders.

Research area of interest: Melissa will study how designers can conduct research and make products with care to better serve survivors of trauma.

Bio: Since retiring from the University of North Carolina System  as Senior Vice President, Kevin FitzGerald has served as Interim Director of the North Carolina Area Health Education System, Interim General Manager of UNC-TV, and is a faculty member of the UNC Department of Family Medicine. He worked at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he started the Center for Public Technology at the School of Government and served as Special Assistant to the Chancellor, and Vice Dean for Finance and Administration and Chief of Staff at the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Health Care System.

Research Interest: Interested in exploring how, across multiple disciplines, design processes can be used to better define complex, adaptive problems. By their nature, these problems are hard to define due to asymmetry of information, power and semantic disposition of multiple stakeholders. Kevin aims to understand the power of design in better addressing these kinds of problems.

Bio: Elysé Girard (she/they) is a communications strategist and design director, whose work focuses within higher education and academic research libraries. Elysé’s practice uses an intentional intersectional lens to combine content and design to build inclusive and accessible research and learning experiences. She is currently the Executive Director of Communications and User Experience at the University of Virginia.

Research interest: Elysé’s research works to understand and further define the use of empathy in the design process to achieve intersectional design solutions that bring design justice and work towards decolonizing design.

Bio: Astrid founded Terra Lumen, a planning design firm with offices in Jakarta and Los Angeles, served as Special Assistant to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, as Special Staff to Indonesia Minister of Trade, as SF Arts Commissioner, and led cities’ design review panels. Her nationwide to local initiatives include Indonesia high-speed rail economic corridor redevelopment, Chicago Green Alley, and SF Civic Center Sustainable District. Her non-profit develops STEAM facilities, calls for architects to reduce land-based debris, adopts sea-turtle ecosystems, and instigates a community-based economy since the pandemic. She received MLA from the University of Colorado at Denver and B.Arch from Bandung Institute of Technology. Recognitions include Indonesia’s Most Powerful Woman of the Year 2012.

Research interest: Building a new language of context-sensitive design thinking and solution for regional transportation infrastructure and community development initiative in Indonesia.

Bio: Justin is a game designer and assistant professor of Simulation and Game Design at William Peace University. He has over ten years of experience in game development at AAA and indie studios, serving in a variety of roles such as: level designer,UI designer, environment artist, character artist, and programmer. Justin has a passion for using games as a platform for design and research. He also enjoys teaching and stays current in games through freelance and contract work.

Research interests: Justin has interest in environmental design for games, and how it affects a user’s experience. He is also interested in how the aesthetic qualities can influence decision making inside and outside of games, using VR as an additional layer of immersion.

Bio: Soyeon Lee is an assistant professor in the Department of Housing and Interior Design at Chung-Ang University of South Korea. She received her bachelor’ s degree in Housing and Interior Design, master’s degree in Architectural Engineering, and Ph.D. in Interior Architecture from Yonsei University of South Korea. She also holds a master’s degree in Interior Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design. She gained practical experience as a designer and engineer while working at Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co., Ltd. She is currently a registered architect.

Research interest: Soyeon’s research interests focus on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches between technology and environmental design.

Bio: A designer, teacher and author, Will began his career as a systems designer for NASA, specializing in cockpit automation and astronaut training. He is the author of several books, including the best-selling Universal Principles of Design, and design lectures at The Great Courses and LinkedIn Learning.

Will currently serves as Vice President of Research and Development at Avenues: The World School, where he leads a team tasked with conducting research in education and the learning sciences, development of new educational curricula, programming, and technologies, and the architecture and design of new campuses around the world.

Research interest: Will’s research interest is the development of a semiotics-information design framework for communication with alien intelligences, both terrestrial (non-human and future human) and extraterrestrial.

Bio:With more than 12 years of design experience, Shruthi’s background is as varied and diverse as the work she produces. Since 2006, she has been many things: a strategist, a brand manager, a student, an educator, an award-winning designer, and creator of acclaimed projects across the globe. She brings together a variety of creative disciplines and experience—by which she is able to supply not merely design, but rather a crafted product which feels together, connected and harmonized via one creative approach which bleeds the same blood throughout the elements. Her design sensibilities are heavily inspired by human-centered design and a deep love for common sense, unusual imagination and clarity of purpose. Her diverse portfolio of work has been internationally recognized by Lürzer’s Archive, GD USA, Graphis Design Annual, The One Club for Creativity, Art Directors Club and AIGA.

Research interest: Shruthi is investigating the influence of design on consumption patterns during and post crisis, through theory and empirical evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bio: Chris was born and raised in Utah. He learned to ski at 3 years old, and early in life, his jobs included river guide (out of Jackson Hole), and snowboard instructor. Chris has been an entrepreneur for most of my career, with his most high profile startup competing with tumblr.com as an emerging digital publishing platform that reached 50M readers per month. He also spent several years working in the advertising industry, where he led the digital strategy group for McCann. Chris currently works as a design consultant for large businesses, helping teams better plan and deliver products and services.

Research interest: Chris is interested in methods for dealing with complex systems in design. He is also interested in emerging design tools & tech, specifically, ethics related to these tools, including: Ai, Bioengineering, VR/MR, and connected (IoT) devices.

Bio: Joseph Moore designed roads and bridges throughout the southeast after graduating from NC State’s Civil Engineering program. Seizing a chance to design for his community, he joined the Town of Cary. During a period of very rapid growth he had opportunities to design and construct a variety of community facilities, and served as the host of a monthly public-access show highlighting activities throughout Town. The experience piqued his interest in public administration and lead to an MPA from UNC’s School of Government. Joe went on to serve as the City Manager of Brevard and is now in his sixth year as Zebulon’s Manager overseeing operations in Planning, Parks and Recreation, Police, Fire, Public Works, Human Resources and Finance.

Research interest: In the wake of the Big 3 industries (textiles, tobacco, furniture) leaving North Carolina, Joe is interested in finding out how the towns designed to facilitate those industries re-design themselves to facilitate a new economy.

Bio:Lexi Namer (she/her) is a multidisciplinary designer, developer, and educator based in Durham, NC. Lexi holds a Master’s degree in interactive media from the University of North Carolina School of Media and Journalism, where she was a Roy H. Park Fellow. An advocate for accessible education, she has been a teacher, mentor, and speaker on design and technology since 2015. Lexi is currently the UI/UX Design Program Director at ThriveDX.

Research interest: Lexi’s research interests focus on how designers working in fast-paced environments can emphasize ethical-centered design throughout the design process to reduce harmful consequences in tech products. 

Bio: Iyare E.C. Oronsaye is currently the Director and Assistant Professor of the Animation and Illustration program at the University of Northwestern. A digital native with ten-plus years of experience as a senior digital artist, executive director, and educator, who specializes in virtual reality, 3D animation, and game design. He is esteemed by his ability to identify, leverage, and develop creative talent. He actively contributes to diverse viewpoints, provides opportunities for artistic growth, advocates for departmental collaboration, and fosters a culture of creative excellence.

Research interest: Iyare has an interest in designing a fully-funded production cohort for underrepresented animators and game designers. He aims to demonstrate how inclusivity within this industry may improve ingenuity, race relations, and artistic expression.

Bio: Mike is a native of North Carolina and currently the Ag and Food Systems Economic Developer for Orange County, North Carolina.  He came to this position following a wide variety of experience as a Soil Scientist, Landscape Architect, and entrepreneur. That experience includes; soils and environmental analysis, planning and design, environmental restoration, agriculture, food systems, business management, and community and economic development.  His interests have always centered on how we relate to our environment; how we affect it, are affected by it, and the degree to which design can influence that relationship.

Research Interest: Promotion of regional food systems as a programmatic driver for regional community and economic development. The basic question is; “what can design offer this process and what would it look like in our region”?

Bio: Maren is a design strategist who has created a broad range of design-based healthcare experiences, strategies, and communications for over two decades. From small start-ups to multi-national healthcare corporations, Maren has led initiatives to optimize complexities through a patient-centered lens that relies on simplicity, visual communication, and innovative technologies.

She currently works at Emory University where she is a founding member of the AppHatchery, an initiative within the Georgia Clinical and Translational Science Alliance that creates patient-centered mobile apps for clinical study. Maren holds a BFA in Graphic Design from Georgia State University and an MBA in Marketing from Baruch College in New York City.

Bio: Senior UX Designer with 7 years in UX and branding for companies of all scales across pharma, education, telecom, and hospitality. AJ holds a Masters in User Experience and Business from Rutgers University, where he serves as UXD Program Coordinator & Industry Advisory Board Member.

AJ currently works at Educational Testing Services, and his claim to fame is his ability to design in real-time. He loves to teach, learn alongside others, and ask a ton of questions. Other likes include video games, martial arts, and problem-solving.

Favorite Quote: “It’s not who you know– It’s who knows you!” – Unknown

Research Interest: My research area of interest is in new synchronous learning models to both: (1) increase the desirability of Continuing Ed; especially design education, (2) create new business models for education.

Bio: Kaleena Sales is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Chair of the Department of Art & Design at Tennessee State University, an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) in Nashville, TN. She is co-host of Design Observer’s The Design of Business | The Business of Design Minisodes podcast with Omari Souza. Her design writing and research centers on Black culture and aesthetics, recently co-authoring the book Extra-Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Non-Binary Field Guild for Graphic Designers, alongside Ellen Lupton, Farah Kafei, Jennifer Tobias, Josh A. Halstead, Leslie Xia, and Valentina Vergara.

Research interests: My research interest centers on Black culture and aesthetics, and seeks to investigate non-canonical methods and ideologies found outside of the mainstream graphic design canon.

Bio: Anne received her Bachelor’s degree in Horticultural Science and her Masters of Landscape Architecture from the University of Illinois. She worked for a landscape design/build firm and the Army Corps of Engineers before launching into her teaching career. She taught in the School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University then made her way to North Carolina State University where she currently teaches six landscape design courses in the Department of Horticultural Science. Her work has centered around people-plant-environments, most notably rain gardens and pollinator habitats. However, her heart has always been anchored in the environment-behavior arena.

Research interests: Anne’s interest is piqued by the efficacy of therapeutic landscapes, and how landscapes can be tailored better for specific population groups. She is also passionate about researching landscapes that improve mental health.

Bio: Jana currently works on the Alexa team at Amazon and lives in Seattle. Her career has centered on language, data, and cognition, how these are expressed in digital form, and their impact on human life.

Jana recently finished a year and a half research position at the Machine Learning for Language at NYU where she helped develop benchmarking data sets for large language models while finishing her master’s degree in UX design at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She was one of seven finalists in the UP/Start Venture Competition for her project Mira, a personalized avatar for aiding individuals with their day-to-day well-being.

In her rare spare time, Jana enjoys hiking and foraging wild foods in the Pacific Northwest and creating aural art pieces with AI.

Research interests: Jana’s recent research has focused on interaction with intelligent agents, benchmarking for large language models, and reimagining human experiences with non-human life in light of climate change. In the program at NC State, she will continue her work on digital explorations of climate change, the environment and language in the post-anthropocene.

Bio: Juhann Waller is a registered Professional Engineer in North Carolina, South Carolina (License #28395) and Virginia with 13 years of experience in the private consulting practice of civil engineering. Mr. Waller has experience in the design, management and construction administration of civil engineering projects in the areas of site development, water and sewer utilities, stormwater design/management and roadway improvements. Mr. Waller research interest is urban stormwater infrastructure resiliency.