Lisa Elzey Mercer

Ph.D. Student, The University of Edinburgh

Lisa Elzey Mercer’s (she/her/hers) interests include developing and executing design interventions focused on ethics and anti-oppressive design frameworks. This methodology is evidenced in her major research projects, Operation Compass, Racism Untaught, and the research she is working toward as a Ph.D. Student in Design at the University of Edinburgh. She co-authored the book Racism Untaught, published by The MIT Press in October 2023.

 

 

Natacha Poggio

Fulbright U.S. Scholar Ecuador, Associate Professor of Design, University of Houston Downtown

Natacha is a social impact design educator and passionate advocate of art and design for social change. She spearheads award-winning projects that promote sustainable development and educational awareness of global issues. Her strategic work fosters transdisciplinary, multi-level partnerships that bring positive change in local and international communities.

 

 

Raja Schaar

Associate Professor, Associate Program Director, Product Design, Drexel University

Raja Schaar, IDSA (she/her) is Director and Associate Professor of the Product Design Program at Drexel University’s Westphal Collage of Media Arts and Design. She co-chairs IDSA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council is the past Education Director for the organization. Raja studies the ethical implications of design and technology through the lenses of speculative design and climate change.

 

Chris Baeza

Associate Program Director and Assistant Teaching Professor of Fashion Industry & Merchandising at Drexel University

Chris Baeza has had an extensive 20+ year career as an accomplished design and merchandising executive with proven results working with iconic global brands. Chris has a strong background in the business of fashion and has multi-tier capabilities in men’s, women’s, accessories and children’s fashion with particular emphasis on brand-building for different channels of distribution.

 

Michelle Janning

Professor of Sociology at Whitman College and Co-Director of Human Centered Design

Michelle is a sociologist, human-centered design and research consultant, professional speaker, and writer living in Walla Walla, Washington. She teaches at Whitman College. She does research, speaks, consults, teaches, and writes about people research in design, changing work-life boundaries, families and intimate relationships, homes and design, technology, inequalities, education, community-based projects, cultural dimensions of childhood and parenthood, social science research methods, and popular culture.

Robin North

Faculty Fellow in Art at Whitman College

Robin North is an interdisciplinary visual artist and educator who explores the intersection of photography, history, and systemic racism, focusing on the African Diaspora and the identity of Americans of African descent. North’s research involves collecting Black family archives in the deep rural South. He uses a participatory, human-centered design approach that prioritizes collaboration and shared authority. He holds a BFA in Photography and Digital Media from the University of Houston and an MFA in Art with a concentration in Photography and Multimedia from San Diego State University.

 

Elena Kennedy

Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship

Elena is the Doherty Emerging Professor for Entrepreneurial Leadership and Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Elon University. Her research centers on strategic decision-making in social enterprises and locally oriented ventures, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and entrepreneurship education. She earned her PhD from the University of Massachusetts-Boston College of Management in the Organizations and Social Change Track of the Business Administration PhD program.

 

Dimitri Higginbotham

Director, Center for Integrated Design. Assistant Professor of Practice at University of Texas at Austin

Dimitri Higginbotham is an educator and human-centered design specialist with a background in music education and M.A. in Design and Innovation from Southern Methodist University. He joins the college from Good Shepherd Episcopal School in Dallas, where he helped to incorporate maker education and design thinking into the school’s curriculum and facilitated design thinking sprints for the school’s board, faculty and staff as they re-imagined collaborative spaces on campus.

 

Diya Abdo

Lincoln Financial Professor of English in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Guilford College

Diya Abdo is a professor, writer, and activist, best known for establishing Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR), which encourages colleges and universities to host refugee families on their campuses and to support refugee resettlement. A first-generation Palestinian refugee born and raised in Jordan, Abdo’s personal background deeply informs her work in advocating for displaced people. She is the author of American Refuge: True Stories of the Refugee Experience, which shares the powerful narratives of refugees from various regions and contexts, and which is an Alamance Reads 2024 book selection for the Alamance County Library. 

 

Saadeddine Shehab

Associate Director of Assessment and Research, SCD-UIUC

Saadeddine Shehab is currently the Associate Director of Assessment and Research at the Siebel Center for Design (SCD) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He works with a group of undergraduate and graduate SCD scholars at SCD’s Assessment and Research Laboratory to conduct research that informs and evaluates the practice of teaching and learning human-centered design in formal and informal learning environments.

 

 

 

Julia Kramer

Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan

Julia is a researcher, educator, and practitioner focused on studying and applying design processes to promote justice and health equity. As an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, she is particularly interested in investigating design approaches that aim to develop products, services, and systems to improve equitable access to health care around the world.

 

 

Avery Staton

Equity Design strategist, facilitator, and coach

Avery Staton is a practitioner focused on advancing design justice via institutional and community work. A co-founder of Reflex Design Collective, they draw on their background in city planning and public health to support community-driven design and grow the capacity of institutions to design with communities most impacted by oppression. Avery holds dual masters degrees in city planning and public health from the University of California, Berkeley.

 

 

 

Steven McCarthy

Professor Emeritus of graphic design, University of Minnesota

Steven McCarthy’s (MFA, Stanford University) long-standing interest in theories of design authorship – as both scholar and practitioner – has led to lectures, exhibits, publications and grant-funded research on six continents. His book, The Designer As… Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur, Curator and Collaborator: New Models for Communicating was published in 2013. McCarthy has published papers in Visible Language, Design and Culture, Design Issues, AIGA Dialectic, The Design Journal and She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation.

 

 

Bill Romani 

Director of Design and Public Innovation

Dr. Bill Romani leads Innovate Carolina’s Design and Innovation for the Public Good team, focusing on solutions to societal challenges through innovation and design thinking. His work spans equity-focused entrepreneurship, storytelling, and community impact. Currently, he’s documenting stories of Black entrepreneurs disrupting systemic inequities in redlined communities.

 

 

Stacy Grau

Professor, Design Thinker, Social Innovator

Dr. Stacy Grau specializes in design thinking and creative problem-solving to drive user-centered innovation and social impact. At Texas Christian University (TCU), Dr. Grau teaches courses in innovation, leadership, and human-centered design through the Neeley School of Business and the J.V. Roach Honors College. As Director of IdeaFactory and Assistant Director of Community Projects at the Burnett School of Medicine, she also leads workshops and initiatives in design thinking for TCU and the wider community.

 

 

Montana Cherney

Healthcare and Design Leader

Montana Cherney is a Creative and strategic leader with 18 years of experience driving innovation in government, citizen, customer, healthcare, and employee experiences. Her expertise lies in human-centred design (HCD), strategy development, and cross-cultural leadership to deliver sustainable impact.

 

 

 

Liz Royea

Consultant and Community Advisor

Liz is a Community & Design Advisor at JSI where she has worked across global Community of Practice projects to drive dynamic engagement and integrate the principles of human-centred design – including the HCDExchange, a community dedicated to exploring how to apply HCD to public health practice. Originally from Canada, she worked for a decade across the East Africa and Horn of Africa regions in the social enterprise and non-profit spaces, and is currently a Masters candidate at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. Liz is a member of the HCD Outcomes Collaborative and co-leads the working group to define and harmonize quality HCD processes.

Christina Hnatov

Learning Experience Catalyst

Christina is an Experience and Curriculum Designer in the Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Participating in the Innovation Studio in the summer of 2019 sparked a curiosity in experimenting within the world of classical music (and made her wish she stuck with the clarinet!) and she’s loved digging into the world of the orchestra ever since. In addition to her work with the Innovation Studio, Christina spends her days working with students and professionals to build their creative confidence and equip them with design tools for approaching big problems in new ways. She’s most excited by bringing together interdisciplinary collaborators and helping them uncover ways to make their work more human-centered. When she isn’t teaching or developing curriculum, she can be found facilitating workshops or partnering with groups from the University of Maryland (UMD) and the public sector to create unique, experiential learning opportunities. Christina has a Master’s of Public Policy from UMD, specializing in fostering cultures of innovation in U.S. government agencies and is particularly interested in institutional and structural barriers to innovation and creativity. She believes that everyone has the capacity to be creative, but often aren’t given the opportunities or tools to do so. In her free time, she travels as much as possible and is almost always knitting, reading, or experimenting in the kitchen.

Mira Azarm

Innovation Instigator & Learning Experience Catalyst, Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Mira is an Innovation Instigator in the Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Mira graduated from UMD with a BA in Art Studio and a concentration in graphic design. She earned an MA in Social Design from MICA, a prestigious art and design school in Baltimore; served as a Robert W. Deutsch Social Design Fellow focused on urban farming and local food access in Baltimore, and as a design coach for climate change mitigation projects in the World Bank. In this and all of her work, she uses human-centered design tools to help people create and implement projects with stakeholder needs in mind. While Mira’s musical talents don’t extend beyond the bean shaker, she seizes the opportunity to immerse herself in the world of the symphony each summer by working with NOI+F. As its unofficial “Chief Innovation Officer” she’s helped NOI Fellows talk to strangers, fed double bass players “potions” that influenced the order of the movements they had to play, learned a lot about flexibility (of all kinds) from dance majors, and got in on the secret that Applause Café has the best iced oat milk latte on campus (magic ingredient: pebble ice!) — among other things. The rest of the year, you can find her experimenting with ways to bring innovation tools and concepts to students, faculty and staff at UMD and beyond. On that note, she really wants to spread the word far and wide about AIE’s Innovation Fellowship program, which is open to UMD grad students and staff from all departments on campus!

 

Adam Kanowitz

Research, Consulting, Student Director, Center for Design Thinking

Adam is Elon University’s Center for Design Thinking team lead, and an active member of the Research and Consulting teams. Having worked at the Center for Design Thinking since May of 2022, and with Design Thinking training going back more than five years, he has spearheaded various teams and initiatives, giving him deep knowledge on Design Thinking’s best practices and applications. He is also a fourth year undergraduate Entrepreneurship and Project Management double major.

 

Joshua Franklin

Research Lead, Center for Design Thinking

Joshua is the Research Lead at Elon’s Center for Design Thinking, leading a student-research hub that studies the value of various aspects of Design Thinking in higher education. He is also a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in political science and economics. He has over three and a half years of experience in Design Thinking, giving over 60 workshops to undergraduate students and community partners.

 

 

 

Emily Smith

Assistant Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University

Emily Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Interior Design at Virginia Commonwealth University and a certified interior designer. She leads the middle Of broad (mOb) studio, an interdisciplinary, community-engaged design studio at VCUarts. Through mOb, Emily facilitates opportunities for students to collaborate on multidisciplinary teams with Richmond community members, developing design concepts that address unique and universal challenges. Her research and creative practice include Patterns of Place, a collaboration with a design historian that examines patterns in the built environment and nature to explore culture, time, and place. This work has inspired the creation of new student programs on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Sicily, where pattern studies offer insights into climate change and resilience. Another of her initiatives, Material Being, brings together an interdisciplinary team of VCU researchers to develop an interactive materials database designed to foster the exchange of methodologies and expand understanding of materials. Emily’s professional experience spans working with leading design firms on both coasts of the United States and contributing to LEED-certified projects in collaboration with the U.S. Green Building Council. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Bachelor of Science from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

 

Katrina Mitchell

Global Technical Advisor on applied design at Jhpiego

Katrina is a strategist, researcher, designer, tinkerer, provocateur and muse working with people to question the status quo and invite in vibrant thinking. Katrina currently works at Jhpiego supporting colleagues on designing for participation and using generative design methods to ensure the way we work, what we do and the health care services and healthy systems we envision together contribute positively to the sustained wellbeing for all people. Prior to joining Jhpiego, she co-founded and led Picture Impact, a feminist design and evaluation consultancy facilitating people-centered change, and be Waste Wise, a global platform to democratize access to expertise addressing the global waste crisis. She is a lecturer at University of San Diego where she leads students on a journey to grapple with the dilemmas of global waste in a transdisiplinary Masters program in Engineering, Sustainability and Health. She finds herself at home in fuzzy challenges, tangled messes, on far shores and in unusual settings. She accesses the spiritual through beauty, trees and rivers, good food, working with people on wicked challenges, and cultivating compassion for wild “corkscrew” minds.

Nicola Brown

CEO & Design Innovation Lead

Nicola Brown combines behavioral & ecological science with strategic design, enabling organizations to thrive in complexity. Over two decades, she has developed life-inspired frameworks that transform team collaboration and adaptation. A fellow of the RSA (The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) and skilled facilitator, she guides analytical minds in unlocking their collaborative potential through evidence-based methods that blend systems thinking with organizational psychology. Her work with leading tech companies demonstrates how bio-inspired approaches drive innovation and build resilient teams.

Tim Peeples

Senior Associate Provost Emeritus and Professor of Humanities

Tim Peeples is the Senior Associate Provost Emeritus, and Professor of Humanities at Elon University. He also holds the position of Senior Scholar in the Center for Engaged Learning, an international research center that develops and synthesizes rigorous research related to high-quality, engaged learning in higher education. In addition to pursuing a wide range of scholarly projects, many aimed at advancing engaged teaching and learning, he has committed to the teaching and mentoring of first-year students.