2012internationalconference-symposium

PANEL MODERATOR
ERIC ANDERSON, FIDSA
Associate Professor
Carnegie Mellon School of Design

Eric Anderson is an IDSA chairman emeritus and associate professor of industrial design at Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) School of Design. He received a bachelor’s in industrial design from the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts), and a master’s in fine arts in design education from The Ohio State University. Before joining CMU in 1998, Anderson spent over a decade as a full-time design practitioner for corporate departments and consulting firms designing products, such as medical instruments, tradeshow exhibits, corporate identities and consumer products. He teaches undergraduate and graduate design studios and is co-director of the Master of Product Development Program, a joint program between design, engineering and business. Anderson’s research explores opportunities to shift the paradigm of how visual education is approached and taught to design and to non-design students with the goal of fostering the inclusion of voices across disciplines.

PANEL MEMBERS

DAVID WEIGHTMAN, IDSA
Professor
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

David Weightman is a professor of industrial design at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. After obtaining both a bachelor’s and master’s in industrial design (engineering) from the Royal College of Art in London, he taught in the Industrial Design Transport Program at the Coventry University, and later he was the dean of the School of Art and Design at Staffordshire University. He was a consultant to Yamaha, Massey Ferguson, British Rail, BBC television and the Tate Gallery London. Now in the US, his teaching and research involves exploring the new relationship between product users and the design and manufacturing process with a focus on the effect of new technology. He is a member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design’s working group on the future of design education and was recently elected as Midwest District VP of the Industrial Designers Society of America.

JOE BALLAY, IDSA
Founding Principal
MAYA Design

Joe Ballay is a nationally known industrial designer, former head of the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University and founding principal of MAYA Design. With his MAYA partners, they authored the forthcoming book Trillions. An interdisciplinarian, he holds a master’s in fine arts in design from Carnegie Mellon University. He also holds a bachelor’s in industrial management from the Carnegie Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s in fine arts in industrial design from the University of Illinois. He has taught design at institutions throughout the world, including the University of Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, the Samsung Design Institute in Korea and the University of Lund in Sweden. Most recently, Ballay and his wife established the Ballay Family Fund, a charitable foundation in support of innovation in education.

OWEN FOSTER, IDSA
Professor
Savannah College of Art and Design

Owen Foster is department chair and professor at the Savanna College of Art and Design (SCAD). He has a bachelor’s in landscape design, a bachelor’s in environmental design and a master’s in industrial design from Auburn University. Foster joined the SCAD faculty as an industrial design professor in 2010 and has just been promoted to department chair. Before becoming a member of the SCAD family, he held professorships at Auburn University and the University of Louisiana Lafayette. His previous professional experiences include design director for multiple product design and manufacturing companies with high-profile clients, such as Home Depot and Supra Boats. Owen also co-founded Fulcrum Collaborative, a group of designers from various backgrounds that work collectively to bring budding ideas to reality.

Education Symposium Panel Title:
Beyond the Traditional Structure: One Concept for an Alternative Future for Industrial Design Education

Many undergraduate industrial design programs incrementally improve curriculums in response to external needs despite being confined by structures that date back 75 years or more. Despite best efforts, there remains the challenge to prepare students with the knowledge and skills needed for the diverse and ongoing rapid changes that the design profession requires. This session will share one proposal for a new approach for research universities. It is intended to start conversations, elicit opinions and motivate others through ongoing post event discussions.

TIM ANTONIUK
Associate Professor
University of Alberta

Tim Antoniuk is an associate professor in the Industrial Design Program at the University of Alberta, where he teaches classes in sustainable design, emerging economic design models, contemporary furniture and design theory. After studying business, sculpture and industrial design in the 90s, he co-founded Hothouse, a furniture design, manufacturing and retail group of companies that sold its products to hundreds of retail galleries around the world. Now a regular presenter/exhibitor at international design conferences and exhibitions on ideas that surround sustainable-desire, chaos theory, and the emergence of the Creative Economy, Antoniuk continues to pursue new methods for creating sustainable and economically viable products and services that are inspired by remote/indigenous cultures and embodied knowledge.

Education Symposium Session Title:
The North, East, West, South (NEWS) Project—Traditional Knowledge Parallels and the Development of New Design/Business Model

Is it possible that smaller and less globally competitive countries in the world could become the focal point of creative inspiration and envy? Could old knowledge and a deep understanding of ancient cultural traditions, such as those of the Canadian Inuit, Chinese, Mexican and South African people become one of the most important factors behind developing innovative goods and services in the future? Could lessons and inspirations from these ancient cultures allow designers to develop new design/business models? Models that would force continual corporate evolution before product evolution? Building onto the research findings, lessons and methodological processes that the Antoniuk and the visionary Dutch design group Droog developed during The Luxury of the North Project, this paper and presentation will show compelling evidence of how one of the most important sources of innovation in the future will come from co-developing a hybridized design/business model—an approach which integrates the new but seeks inspiration and wisdom from ancient knowledge parallels and cultural traditions.

BROOKS ATWOOD
Assistant Professor and Assistant Director, Idea Factory
New Jersey Institute of Technology, School of Art+Design

Brooks Atwood is the founder of POD® DESIGN & MEDIA LLC, an award-winning New York- based design studio working in the fields of architecture, industrial design and environments specializing in advanced technologies and material transcendence, since 2003. Atwood has lectured at Parsons The New School for Design, NJIT and exhibited work during ICFF and WantedDesign in New York City. He has collaborated on several award-winning art and sculpture around the world, including Korea, Germany, England and New York City. Brooks’ collaboration with Michael Joo is part of the permanent collection at the Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, Korea.

Poster Presentation Title:
Think Pieces (or WWLGD?)

Think Pieces will explore the relationship between big ideas in education and how the process of design can be taught by one single, simple, intellectual question: What Would Lady Gaga Do? (WWLGD?) Think Pieces will show how thinking big can both inspire and transform design education. The process of design has many faces, but when you approach a project by asking that one thought provoking question, “What Would Lady Gaga Do?” you get results that tap into your imagination, push boundaries, challenge existing norms and inspire unadulterated creativity with a real life direct connection to entrepreneurial business. Ideas can change everything. Learning, Thinking + Education = new ways to impact the business of design (i.e. the future).

WILLIAM BULLOCK, FIDSA
Professor
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

William Bullock is professor of industrial design and director of the Product Interaction Research Laboratory (PIRL) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). His work through PIRL focuses on design for the environment research and development of sustainable products. He is an affiliate with the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center where he is helping build the Sustainable Electronics Initiative. His career spans three decades as an academician, administrator and practitioner and includes direction and advancement of industrial design programs at UIUC, Georgia Tech and Auburn University. He is an active fellow in IDSA and a NASAD accreditation evaluator.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Sustaining Sustainable Design Innovation

In this session Bullock will share his experience in directing multi-discipline student and faculty innovation teams, including a number of viable approaches to sustaining sustainable design innovation. Since most environmental impact is determined by decisions and specifications derived at during the product’s design phase, industrial designers are important stakeholders. One particularly successful model developed by Bullock uses multidisciplinary innovation teams to address sustainable design and research. Sustainable design innovation is a useful strategy for changing our existing manufacturing and distribution system from a linear cradle-to-grave one to a closed-loop cradle-to-cradle model that minimizes or eliminates waste entirely.

WOOJOON CHUNG
Assistant Professor
Carleton University

Dr. WonJoon Chung is an assistant professor at the School of Industrial Design in Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. He holds a bachelor’s in industrial design from Konkuk University in South Korea, a master’s in design from The Ohio State University and a doctorate from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology. He has professional experience in product design and university teaching experience. His research interests include collaborative prototyping in an interdisciplinary context for new product definition, ethnographic design research for user-centered design approach and design methods for innovative product development.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Meaning Creation through Community-Centered Design Approach

This session will discuss community-centered design by presenting a sponsored project that uses third year industrial design students at Carleton University as an example. In this project, students were asked to generate meaningful design for a local community, Batawa, and develop innovative design concepts and ideas guided by the people in the community. To accomplish this, a framework of community-centered design based on the notion, “a context as a system, a product as a component and the relationship between them as a meaning” was practiced in detail. This session will present how the students identified the meanings of the town for the community, reinterpreted them as compelling design concepts and proposed several innovative design ideas to meet the community’s desires and vision to develop the town into a sustainable and innovative community in the near future.

Presenter
STEVEN J. DOEHLER, IDSA
Assistant Professor
University of Cincinnati, Industrial Design Program

Steven Doehler is an expert in the area of user-centered product development. He received a bachelor’s in fine arts in industrial design from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a master’s in industrial design from The Ohio State University. He has worked professionally for consulting and corporate design offices since 1988 and in October 1999 he started IDWorks (industrial design consulting). During this time, he was also active in several entrepreneurial efforts that center on health and wellness. Doehler is currently a faculty member of the University of Cincinnati’s (UC) Industrial Design Program. There he has brought his professional knowledge and experiences to an already well-established faculty and is leading efforts to build a strong community health and entrepreneurial component to UC’s School of Design.

CO-PRESENTERS


ROBERTA J. LEE, RN
Associate Professor
University of Cincinnati

Roberta Lee is an associate professor of clinical nursing at University of Cincinnati’s College of Nursing. In addition to her teaching courses in public health and nursing, she is a consultant on programs to assist minority and under-served populations. With a master’s and a bachelor’s in nursing from the University of Cincinnati and a master’s in public health from UC Berkeley, her extensive public health experience includes long-term postings in Central America, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia and the Caribbean. She has also provided services and conducted research in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania, Cameroon, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Israel and Haiti.

PETER CHAMBERLAIN, IDSA
Assistant Professor
University of Cincinnati

Peter Chamberlain is an assistant professor of industrial design and a graduate of the Master of Fine Art Sculpture Program at the University of Cincinnati. He also holds a design degree from the graduate school at Chiba University in Japan. His continued international experience has been formative in developing a body of research that considers the unique role that culture plays in the emotional appreciation of everyday products and experiences. Through his experience he has worked extensively with corporate sponsored projects, guiding interdisciplinary collaborative student teams as they tackle complex and crosscutting design problems.

LINDA A. DUNSEATH
Executive Director
Live Well Collaborative

Linda Dunseath is currently the Live Well Collaborative’s (LWC) Executive Director, an innovation incubator that partners with the University of Cincinnati and member organizations to develop product and services to meet the growing needs of the 50+ population. Dunseath provides strategic leadership to the LWC board of directors and guides the administration and operation of the LWC. This includes project planning and execution, member relationship management and recruitment, and board meeting and event facilitation. Daily operations include responsibility for managing research staff, budget execution as well as working with member companies and the University to set up and coordinate studio projects and workshops.

INIGO ARRONIZ, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Cincinnati

Inigo Arroniz is an assistant professor of marketing at the College of Business at the University of Cincinnati. His research and teaching interest are the interface between innovation and marketing, customer relationship management and econometric models. He has taught brand management and new product management as well as consulting with companies on innovation issues. Arroniz holds a postdoctoral degree from the Center of Innovation and Technology Management at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business, a doctorate in marketing from the University of Central Florida and a bachelor’s in economics from the University of Navarre.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Creating a Roadmap for the Future of Our +50 Population: An Inside Look at the Live Well Collaborative Studios

In 2007 the Live Well Collaborative (LWC) concept of a sustained public and private collaboration focusing on +50 consumers was realized through a joint effort between the University of Cincinnati and Procter & Gamble. The LWC is an innovative learning laboratory specializing in research and product development through faculty led and student-executed projects that are funded by corporate partners. The LWC has completed 30 projects that has exposed over 30 faculty and over 400 students to an interdisciplinary model that is driven by design thinking and grounded in consumer insights. This presentation will take an in-depth look at the LWC’s operating components, project organization strategies and its pedagogy for student, faculty and corporate collaboration. The panel will review strategies for success, obstacles overcome and currently facing, and will offer projects examples completed in the context of their collaborative.

HAAKON FASTE
Assistant Professor
Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

Haakon Faste is an assistant professor of the practice of human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. A former leader of IDEO’s software experiences design practice, he has led design strategy, implementation, technology innovation and IP strategy on creative projects for some of the world’s most innovative corporations. He holds a doctorate in perceptual robotics from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy, and a bachelor’s in physics and studio art from Oberlin College. At Carnegie Mellon his scholarship focuses on socially responsible innovation, design education and computer-assisted collaborative creativity.

TRYGVE FASTE, IDSA
Assistant Professor
University of Oregon

Trygve Faste is currently an assistant professor of product design at the University of Oregon. He has taught classes at California State University Long Beach, Otis College of Art, Whitman College and Cranbrook Academy of Art among others. Faste has worked as a product designer at various companies including IDEO, Fakespace and WET Design. He has worked with clients such as Pepsi, John Deere, SAS, Baxter Health Care, Ely Lilly Pharmaceuticals, Kraft Foods, Sega, MGM and Hasbro/Tiger Electronics. He has a master’s in fine arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a bachelor’s in mathematics, computer science and studio art from Whitman College.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Demystifying Design Research: Design is Not Research, Research is Design

In the fields of design, ranging from the arts to technology and computer engineering, the phrase “design research” has numerous uses and meanings. This presentation examines variant approaches to design research practice, as described in recent literature on design. We identify four basic categories of design research to clarify the differing intents and objectives of designers across research disciplines: (1) design through research, wherein researchers perform activities that would conventionally be considered research, (2) design of research, the activities routinely performed by researchers to plan and evaluate their experimental designs, (3) research on design, wherein researchers interested in improving design practice examine it and (4) research through design, wherein designers design things as usual but consider their results research because, in addition to shaping tangible outcomes, they’ve learned something new about their practice.

THAD FISHER
Senior Engineer
Kraft Foods

Thad Fisher is senior engineer at Kraft Foods in Madison, WI, where he is responsible for packaging research and development (R&D) within the Oscar Mayer cold cuts, hot dogs and bacon categories. Fisher earned a degree in packaging from University of Wisconsin-Stout and has worked in packaging R&D in a number of industries, including chemicals, electronics, furniture, consumer products and many types of food, using a broad range of package formats. His experience at Kraft has included all categories within Oscar Mayer as well as over two years in packaging strategic research, where he worked to bring consumer trends together with emerging packaging technologies to build a pipeline of packaging innovation platforms. He then worked with Kraft’s business units to transform front-end research into breakthrough packaging solutions.

KELLEY STYRING
Founder
InsightFarm

The founder of consumer strategy and market research consultancy InsightFarm, Kelley Styring helps her clients find new opportunities for growth. Previously, she managed market research for Procter & Gamble, served as director of consumer strategy for Frito-Lay and designed products for NASA and Black & Decker. She earned her bachelor’s in industrial design from University of the Arts, Philadelphia and an MBA from University of South Carolina. She authored two books, In Your Purse: Archaeology of the American Handbag and In Your Car: Road Trip through the American Automobile. USA Today, Advertising Age, Brandweek, Fortune, Good Morning America and ABC News have featured Styring.

Education Symposium Session Title:
The One-Handed World and the Future of Innovation

According to a new study, the widespread use of handheld technology is permanently changing the way humans interact with a wide variety of products. The One Handed World study found that consumers spend 40 percent, the majority, of their waking hours with one hand occupied. At the same time, they try to use products or open packages with their single remaining hand even though these items were never designed with this in mind. The author conducted in-depth qualitative and quantitative research with an extreme user group—arm amputees. By studying arm amputees, The One Handed World offers foresight. Amputees live elegantly and efficiently with only one hand, providing a preview of this shift in overall consumer behavior. Now designers have the rare opportunity to not only understand where the consumer is headed, but also get there first with new designs to meet their needs.

CINDY GILBERT
Faculty and Coordinator, Sustainable Design Online Program
Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Cindy Gilbert teaches within and directs the Minneapolis College of Art and Design’s newly launched graduate program in sustainable design that is offered completely online. In this role, Gilbert fosters a culture of awareness and creativity through sustainable, innovative and collaborative design. She believes that designers have the power and responsibility to make positive impacts to the planet and every organism that depends upon its resources, including us. She holds a master’s in education from Griffith University (Australia) and a master’s in wildlife science from Oregon State University. Gilbert has extensive research experience in the fields of climate change and polar ecology and has taught several courses and workshops in the fields of biology, sustainability and biomimicry. Most recently she served three and half years as the founding director of university education at The Biomimicry Institute where she developed and managed all higher education programs, including the biomimicry professional certification program, annual education summits, affiliate and fellows programs and student design challenges.

Education Symposium Session Title:
The Evolution of Sustainable Product Design Education

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (Sloan/Babson, 2011) reports that over 30 percent of US higher education students were taking at least one online course in the fall 2010; this ten percent growth rate for online enrollments far exceeds the one percent growth in the overall higher education student population. As more institutions venture into the burgeoning field of online education, it has become clear that online learning is not an educational fad but instead holds great promise for the future and democratization of education. By leveraging existing technologies and a global, interdisciplinary faculty, students have the capability to cross design disciplines, geographic boundaries, cultural regions and time zones. This model of engagement has great potential to expand students’ professional networks and design perspectives through transnational discourse, collaboration, innovation and leadership. But, can product design be taught online? This presentation will examine this question by sharing the tribulations and triumphs of developing, administering and implementing a new graduate program with an emphasis in sustainable product design that is taught completely online.

GARRETH HEIDT
Humanities Teacher
Perkiomen Valley School District

For the past 15 years, Garreth Heidt has been engaging his middle school humanities students through a unique instructional approach to creativity and design thinking. His curriculum employs project-based learning aimed at developing his students’ skills in critical viewing, civil discussion and problem solving. The learning process is driven by design-minded means to a unique educational end for his students. A teacher for almost 20 years, Heidt has spent time teaching and developing classes at the middle school, high school and college level.
You can read more about Heidt's work here.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Design-Based Education: STEAM Power for a Better Future

For almost two decades, institutions of secondary and higher education have witnessed an increasing migration of students away from the liberal arts and into the professional and technical degree fields, and an even greater administrative focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs. While understandably driven by the rising cost of college education and the larger starting salaries of these fields, this migration means that schools are increasingly downsizing arts programs. This session offers a look inside a classroom that engages students in valuable learning experiences that employ both the technical and critical thinking skills of STEM with “21st century skill sets” of collaboration, communication and creative thinking—key components of traditional liberal arts curriculum. The result is a STEA(rts)M powered classroom that moves students to create and learn by doing.

PANEL MODERATOR
PERCY HOOPER
Director of Entrepreneurship and New Product Development, College of Design
North Carolina State University

Percy Hooper is the director of entrepreneurship and new product development at North Carolina State (NC State) University’s College of Design. He teaches undergraduate and graduate design studios focusing on invention, innovation and the design process. Hooper has earned degrees in architecture, product design and industrial design. In addition to writing for international and domestic journals, he has lectured in Spain, South Africa, Australia, Germany, Finland and Guatemala. Since 1990, Hooper has enjoyed his role as an academic innovator at NC State, and looks forward to further developing his career as a “producer of educational entrepreneurship.”

PANEL MEMBERS
 

JARED VANSCODER
Lead Faculty Member
Irving High School

Jared Vanscoder's passion falls where learning, design and technology intersect. He completed his undergraduate work in industrial design at the University of Houston, his graduate work in educational technology at Texas A&M Commerce and is currently working towards a doctorate in educational computing at the University of North Texas. His research includes the design and development of intelligent learning systems and environments or Smart Schools. Vanscoder has worked in engineering, architecture, product design and education. Currently, he is the lead faculty member at Irving High School in the design and engineering program. And, he serves as the STEM academy coordinator. His passion for design education in K-12 is evident in his classroom. His use of problem-based learning and design thinking has proven to instill innovation and creativity in students. To find out a little more about what Vanscoder brings to the classroom, go here.

DORIS WELLS-PAPANEK, IDSA
Principal
Tailored Learning Tools

Doris Wells-Papanek collaborates with educators, practitioners and learners to design and research learning experiences as principal of Tailored Learning Tools. She has coached educators and learners of all ages, authored papers and presented at conferences. She has co-authored and published five research-based and learning-centered books. She also collaborates with companies and learning organizations such as Apple and Xerox, as well as Waukegan Public Schools and University of Illinois. She holds a master’s in curriculum and instruction design from National-Louis University and a bachelor’s degree in product and environmental design from the Kansas City Art Institute & School of Design.

Education Symposium Panel Title:
Design Education for Future Generations

What benefits are seen when public school education embraces design education? How do current STEM and STEAM mandates support or hinder design thinking in K-12 education? How have university design programs entered the K-12 arena? Hooper will join Doris Wells-Papanek, co-author of five books on student-centered learning and Jared Vanscoder, author of The Importance of Design Education in K12 to examine these and other questions that define the changing relationship between design thinking and the public school system.

DEBERA JOHNSON
Executive Director
Pratt Institute’s Center for Sustainable Design Studies

Debera Johnson founded the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation in 2002 during her tenure as chair of the Industrial Design program. Under her leadership, the Incubator has helped launch over 30 design driven enterprises in four sectors: clean energy, fashion design, product design and design consulting. The incubator is part of the Center for Sustainable Design Studies (CSDS). Founded in 2008, the CSDS supports student projects in art, design, architecture and urban planning, works on industry projects that promote environmentally and socially responsible best practices and is a resource for sustainable design evaluation tools and programming, workshops, faculty and student case studies. Johnson founded the Partnership for Academic Leadership in Sustainability (PALS), a cohort of educators that represent the collaboration of 33 independent art and design colleges across North America. The PALS fellows are actively collaborating to advance sustainability in art and design education by creating events, exhibits and processes that share and leverage their collective resources into a new educational future.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Making Change Happen: The Power of 33
PALS—Partnership for Academic Leadership in Sustainability

In 2010 an academic group representing 33 independent art and design institutions met to discuss how to use the power of numbers to integrate sustainability into their institutions and curricula. Partnership for Academic Leadership in Sustainability (PALS) has presented a collective vision of collaboration vs. competition and has been an important catalyst for change. PALS is currently working on linking sustainability to key academic metrics, publishing an annual report on sustainability initiatives and is curating a group exhibition/platform of student work by its member schools. The PALS cohort is also working on a prototype for an innovative model for the future of design education. In June 2012 PALS received the ACUPCC 2012 National Climate Leadership Award for its groundbreaking collaboration. This presentation will discuss key findings and present an overview of transferable methods that can be relevant to faculty hoping to lead change.

YUSEUNG KIM
User Experience Designer
Yahoo

Yuseung Kim is a design researcher and multimedia designer. He is interested in the social implications of emerging technologies and digital devices on our daily experiences. He explores notions of time and space by re-structuring the familiar world in unfamiliar ways. His methodology is interpreting and provoking data by using the language of visualization to create narratives. He is currently a user experience designer at Yahoo! in the US. He holds a master’s in fine arts in media design from the Art Center College of Design and a bachelor’s in fine arts in visual communication design from Seoul National University.

Co-Poster Presenters

AUSTIN S. LEE
Master’s Candidate
MIT Media Lab

Austin Lee earned his master’s in fine arts from the Graduate Media Design Program at the Art Center College of Design where his thesis focused on the inscription of movements in a future of digitally enabled environments. His research interests include using the environment as a communication medium through applying computation in creative contexts, prototyping and storytelling to address interesting aspects of the modern digital life. In 2010 he was awarded the NASA Space Grant to work at NASA JPL as a visual strategist and researcher. Lee is currently a master’s candidate and research assistant at the Tangible Media Group at MIT Media Lab.

SAMUEL LUESCHER
Research Assistant
Tangible Media Group at the MIT Media Lab

While working as a freelance photographer, Sam Luescher began to study visual communications at the Basel School of Design. He then studied silkscreen techniques, spray paint and edible type at The Cooper Union in New York City for a semester. Later, he went to Zurich, Switzerland for a couple of years, where he worked as an interaction designer. From that experience, he decided to become a web app and mobile developer. Today, Luescher is a research assistant with the Tangible Media Group at the MIT Media Lab. He currently lives in Cambridge, MA.

KSHITIJ MARWAH
Master’s Student
MIT Media Lab

Kshitij Marwah is interested in novel and diverse visual forms, social and interaction design paradigms ranging from imaging systems for the future to interfaces for ubiquitous access to the information deluge around us. He is currently pursuing his master’s at the MIT Media Lab. He completed his undergraduate studies in computer science and engineering from IIT Delhi with his thesis jointly at the MIT CSAIL and Harvard Medical School. Before this, he was a visiting student at Stanford University. He also interned at Google to create the next prodigy application for seamless socio-functional connectivity and at IBM on enabling mobile-based financial transactions. He is an entrepreneur, spawning companies as diverse as financial advising to location-aware aggregator services.

Poster Presentation Title:
A Model for Self-Organized Design Education

Our presentation introduces a curriculum to transform designers into innovative thinkers, disruptive technologists, inventors, creative leaders and entrepreneurs within the emerging paradigms in design and technology. Our goal is to widen designers’ perspectives, thereby empowering them to become today’s problem solvers as well as speculators of the near future.

The curriculum offers core studio courses and workshops. A workshop is a process that allows students to tinker and “make as a way of thinking,” which is balanced with regular coursework that focuses on more rigorous research methods. Core studio courses teach students how to apply design capabilities to different scenarios and deliver projects that can push the boundaries of modern technology in the context of an original vision. The goal is to enable students to communicate their ideas, genuinely inspire and constantly push the limits in a creative context.

ALEX LOBOS, IDSA
Assistant Professor of Industrial Design
Rochester Institute of Technology

Alex Lobos uses design as a catalyst for sustainable and social impact. He lectures regularly throughout North America, Latin America and Asia. Lobos is assistant professor of industrial design and extended program faculty at Golisano Institute for Sustainability at Rochester Institute of Technology. Previously, he was faculty at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Universidad Rafael Landivar in Guatemala as well as industrial designer at General Electric. Lobos is a Fulbright Scholar and holds an master’s in fine arts from the University of Notre Dame and a bachelor’s in industrial design from Universidad Rafael Landivar.

LORRIE FREAR
Associate Professor of Graphic Design
Rochester Institute of Technology

Lorrie Frear is an associate professor in the School of Design in the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where she is committed to creating collaborative learning experiences for students representing different departments in the college, other colleges at RIT and other universities. In all of Frear’s classes, there is an emphasis on current design issues and challenges, creativity, critical thinking, individual development and a passion for life-long learning. Her specific areas of expertise include typography, packaging design, design systems, design literacy and contemporary lettering.

SANDRA TURNER, IDSA
Instructor of Industrial Design
Rochester Institute of Technology

Sandra Turner is fascinated and curious about designing products, systems and services that meet real consumer needs without compromising quality or ethical responsibilities. She loves to challenge students to go beyond the unknown and explore possibilities. She holds a master’s in fine arts in industrial design from RIT. Her thesis research focused on innovation in classroom design. Before graduate school, she spent her first career in the business world and holds a bachelor’s in business administration with a concentration in marketing and art. Turner is passionate about the design process, especially the art of design thinking and concept development.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Transdisciplinary Packaging Design: A Model for Future Design Education

Packaging design is a great example of a complex cross-disciplinary workflow, which balances elements such as structural integrity, product safety, visual branding, user experience and in-store purchase decision. Successful designs in this industry require integration of multiple disciplines, and as design education defines its future direction, it cannot overlook the need of enabling these types of experiences in the classroom. This presentation will focus on a trans-disciplinary design studio on packaging design at Rochester Institute of Technology, between packaging science, graphic and industrial design. This studio brings together students and faculty from all three disciplines, developing sustainable packaging solutions for Fortune 500 Company sponsors. This cross-disciplinary emphasis sets expectations for students to be responsible for all elements in their concepts rather than only the ones related to their own discipline, all leading to solutions that go above and beyond what each discipline could accomplish by itself.

DAVID MORGAN, IDSA
Assistant Professor
Brigham Young University

David Morgan received his master’s in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1996 and his undergraduate degree in industrial design from Brigham Young University in 1993. Professionally, Morgan has consulted on projects including furniture, shoes, house wares and soft goods. He is sole proprietor of Backflip Design Workshop. He is interested in teaching design through low-volume production, folding and compliant mechanisms, and essential design translation. He has taught design at RISD, University of Wisconsin, Rochester Institute of Technology and now at Brigham Young University.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Learning Design Through Making

This presentation describes a making-centric teaching methodology intended to illuminate design issues and processes through a low-volume production project. The methodology involves material discovery informing initial design, iteration with human needs and production realities in mind, a low-volume production run functioning as ongoing design critique and refinement, simple tool and fixture making to facilitate production, and relative success of retail sales as design feedback. Developed over a number of years at different institutions and venues, this making methodology allows students to engage with materials and processes to see the entire product development process in an energetic microcosm.

DANA NEMERSON
Master’s Student
Rochester Institute of Technology

Dana Nemerson is a student in the master’s in environmental health and safety management program at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY.

Poster Presentation Title:
How Product and Process Designers Can Play a Role in Environmental Sustainability and Social Responsibility

To move our society towards sustainability, we must identify measurable practices through which sustainable concepts can be applied throughout society. In business, there needs to be a better understanding of the how the various functional units in an organization have prepared and positioned themselves to contribute to sustainability and to define each of their roles and responsibilities. Towards this end, professionals in 10 functional areas were surveyed regarding their potential role to contribute to sustainability and social responsibility. The study has shown that product and process designers consider themselves prepared and positioned to be involved in: implementing measures to minimize and manage waste, identifying and minimizing potentially adverse impacts on ecosystems, balancing the needs of the organization and its stakeholders, and providing products and services that are safe for users and the environment.

CHERYL ZHENYU QIAN, IDSA
Assistant Professor
Purdue University

Cheryl Zhenyu Qian is an assistant professor of interaction design in industrial design at Purdue University. She received a bachelor’s in architecture from Southeast University in China, a master’s of applied science and a doctorate in interactive arts and technology from Simon Fraser University in Canada. She seeks to understand design as a cognitive process and to use computers to complement the capabilities of designers in creative and flexible ways. Apart from researching the design process, she also worked as a practicing designer creating visual representations, such as interactive and dynamic websites, 3D renderings and animations, developing multimedia courses and learning about objects to foster design education, analyzing use cases to improve multimedia repository design, producing information visualization panels to support navigation and designing applications to support visual analysts. Her Ph.D. dissertation won the Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal in 2010.

VICTOR YINGJIE CHEN
Assistant Professor
Purdue University

Victor Yingjie Chen is an assistant professor of computer graphics technology at Purdue University Dr. Chen has been working in multi-disciplinary domains for two decades, starting as an engineer then as a 3D illustrator and animator, a Web designer, an Internet system developer, a technical lead and director, a researcher and finally a design educator. Seeking to use computers to complement the capabilities of designers in creative and flexible ways, he integrates his professional practice experience into academic research and applies cognitive design principles and new technologies to create innovative interaction and visualization in design. His research works have won a three-year NSERC postgraduate scholarship and several awards in IEEE VAST challenge competitions.

Education Symposium Session Title:
When Simple Products are not Simple to Operate: Attaining Simplicity in Interaction Design

We are awash in a monotonous sea of buttons and blinking lights. Simplicity is one of the ultimate goals for both product design and interaction design. However, pursuing over-simplicity might mislead the designer and cause user confusion. In a graduate level industry design studio course, we researched how to achieve simplicity in the mental model and embed it in an elegant design. We chose to study digital weather forecasters. The students recorded their unpacking, installation, and operation processes and used the qualitative data analysis tool Atlas.TI to code the video data. After identifying and prioritizing a list of design problems, they started the redesign process at two stages: incremental design and immersive design. This presentation talks about the structure and outcomes of this design experience, highlights the successes and failures, and most importantly, illustrates a potential path to true simplicity and elegance in design.

CHAUNCEY SAURUS, IDSA
Design Researcher

Chauncey Saurus recently finished her graduate work at Georgia Institute of Technology where she focused her studies on design research. While studying, she worked as a research and teaching assistant to Claudia Rebola. This led to her passion for involving users in the design process and educating designers how to do so. Before entering the field of industrial design, Saurus studied sculpture and worked as a prop maker. However, she was unsatisfied until she discovered her drive to use creativity to improve people’s lives.

Education Symposium Session Title:
How Co-Design is being Taught

In this session, Saurus will discuss the results of a study on co-design education in industrial design. Seven case studies of ID programs were used to develop an understanding of how co-design is being taught within academic industrial design programs. A composite of commonly used approaches and methods will be discussed and a learning aid developed from findings will also be demonstrated.

AARON SCOTT, IDSA
Assistant Professor
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Aaron Scott is an assistant professor in the Design Department at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He teaches courses in both industrial and communication design. His interests and research have been focused on connecting overlapping disciplines and how creativity can be fostered throughout all channels of innovation. Scott has been researching meaningful play as it relates to our health, and how this effects design decisions. He has over 15 years of experience in business, marketing and design. He earned a master’s in fine arts in industrial design from Purdue University.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Meaningful Play: How it’s Changing the Future of Health

This presentation introduces how playification, pleasurable experiences, social engagement and fun are used as techniques and opportunities for new designs. It addresses how these principles work together to change behavior and discusses current play-centric theories and methods that are used to understand and create solutions to serious health-related problems, such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Wearable health-related technological artifacts and other devices are used as examples to illustrate how the inclusion of meaningful play, when coupled with social engagement, can direct usage and influences design decisions. As a result of this session, you will gain a better understanding of how playful experiences can be used as a design element and how these experiences are incorporated into general design processes to benefit other product categories. Fun, joy and meaningful play can change human behavior for the better.

YASAMAN SHERI
Design Teaching Fellow
Singularity University

Yasaman Sheri is a teaching fellow in the design track at Singularity University. Passionate about the living world, she envisions a time when biology and design hold no boundaries. She has been part of Genspace NYC and numerous public engagements, including TEDx. Previously, she has collaborated with Institute Without Boundaries on the world house project in Chile and has led her own social design project in South Africa co-designing with people of various townships. Sheri is the co-founder of Pecha Kucha Ottawa and on the board of directors at Hexagram’s wetware lab at Concordia University in Montréal. She holds a bachelor’s in industrial design from Carleton University.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Design of the Living Future

While we often think of evolution of forms and functions as being guided by environmental pressures, humans now alter nature as they know it. It’s about time industrial designers join the conversation; our future is going to be living. When we gain the power to design living things, design transcends the limits of products and propagates in every aspect of life. Designers have always imagined the future, bridging the gap between technology and humans, products and lifestyles. Today we hold the same responsibility to imagine a future that is no longer inert, but one that is living, when our tools are living organisms and our materials are living DNA. However, we rarely find scientific discourse intersect design process. This panel explores the outcomes of a living future, rethinking the idea of pets, food, factories, fuel, fashion and lifestyle. Our future products will be versatile, adaptive and always evolving alongside their designers.

PAUL SKAGGS
Associate Professor
Brigham Young University

Paul Skaggs is an associate professor at Brigham Young University. He joined the faculty after 22 years of experience in the product design and development industry, 14 years of which he operated his own full-service product development consulting firm. His clients included Kodak, Fisher-Price, Federal Express, Motorola, AT&T, Xerox and Hewlett-Packard, to name a few. Skaggs is the current chair of industrial design program at Brigham Young University. He has published numerous papers on the subject of creativity and innovation. Skaggs is the recipient of the Abell Innovation Professorship at Brigham Young University.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Creating a Mindset for Innovation

To stay ahead of the rapid development of new technology in the 21st century, we believe engineers need to understand what it means to be innovative. This session focuses on the efforts being implemented to advance the culture of innovation within Brigham Young University’s College of Engineering. The primary method we’ve developed to help our students better understand the process of innovation and its related principles is what we call Innovation Boot Camp. The Boot Camp involves students and faculty from four different programs and departments from the College of Engineering: technology engineering education, manufacturing engineering, information technology and industrial design. We defined Innovation Boot Camp principles as being Safe Environment, Multidisciplinary, Makes Ideas Concrete and Aware of Ingredients, those being: (1) problem finding (2) problem shaping (3) exploration (4) problem refining (5) and insight sharing. This session will discuss the Innovation Boot Camp’s goals, curriculum development, organization and logistics, activities, methods of instruction and assessment.

SANDRA TURNER, IDSA
Instructor of Industrial Design
Rochester Institute of Technology

Sandra Turner is fascinated and curious about designing products, systems and services that meet real consumer needs without compromising quality or ethical responsibilities. She loves to challenge students to go beyond the unknown and explore possibilities. She holds a master’s in fine arts in industrial design from RIT. Her thesis research focused on innovation in classroom design. Before graduate school, she spent her first career in the business world and holds a bachelor’s in business administration with a concentration in marketing and art. Turner is passionate about the design process, especially the art of design thinking and concept development.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Using Design in the Classroom to Inspire Sustainable Change

The classroom plays a critical role in a student’s emotional development, yet the objects in the classroom and how they impact learning has not been widely researched. Teachers and students use many of the same objects originally designed in the 1800s while trying new classroom techniques, which is like using your iPad while driving a horse and buggy. This presentation suggests that by designing meaningful subject-object relationships in the classroom environment, students will be inspired to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for both the material and natural world. In theory, by using the classroom to tell the “story” of objects students touch and feel every day, they will intuitively learn the importance that design has in the process of making “stuff” and become emotional engaged with how it impacts our society and environment.

JARED VANSCODER
Lead Faculty Member
Irving High School

Jared Vanscoder's passion falls where learning, design and technology intersect. He completed his undergraduate work in industrial design at the University of Houston, his graduate work in educational technology at Texas A&M Commerce and is currently working towards a doctorate in educational computing at the University of North Texas. His research includes the design and development of intelligent learning systems and environments or Smart Schools. Vanscoder has worked in engineering, architecture, product design and education. Currently, he is the lead faculty member at Irving High School in the design and engineering program. And, he serves as the STEM academy coordinator. His passion for design education in K-12 is evident in his classroom. His use of problem-based learning and design thinking has proven to instill innovation and creativity in students. To find out a little more about what Vanscoder brings to the classroom, go here.

Education Symposium Session Title:
The Importance of Design Education in K-12

This session presents the important place design education has in K-12. Jared Vanscoder, lead faculty member in the design and engineering program at Irving High School, makes the argument that design education in K-12 is much more than a class or curriculum, it's an opportunity for students to employ their education and skills in developing innovative solutions to real problems. The program at Irving High School illustrates the creative abilities and technical skills achievable by students from any background, through design.

PETER WEHRSPANN
Industrial Designer
Carleton University

Peter Wehrspann holds a master’s in industrial design. His research focuses on using biology to inspire designers to find novel solutions for product development. Wehrspann operates his brand Holtzundmetal out of Toronto, Canada.

Education Symposium Session Title:
Bio-Inspired Design for Technological Advancement

This is an interactive session that combines the disciplines of biology and industrial design. This workshop will focus on a portable toolkit that was developed to make it easier for designers to envision manufactured solutions that leverage biological analogies. Participants will listen to a brief presentation about the research foundations and then participate in a furniture design charrette that employs the toolkit. The objective is to demonstrate how a biological toolkit can help participants use biology as a form of design inspiration for projects.

JERROD WINDHAM
Assistant Professor
Auburn University

Jerrod Windham is an assistant professor of industrial design at Auburn University. His energy, both inside and outside the classroom, focuses on the crossroads where sustainability and emerging technologies meet. While much of his research over the past five years has explored and developed general methodologies related to sustainable design, his more recent focus has centered around the sustainable and employment implication of the emergence of on-demand design and fabrication services. Windham is co-founder of Fulcrum Collaborative. Before joining the faculty at Auburn, he spend a number of years working with a small, regional-centric consulting firm, Push Product Design, whose clients include Gibson Guitar, Griffin Technology, Hartmann Luggage, Char-Broil, Tiffin Motor Homes and Skier's Choice.

Education Symposium Session Title:
The Present and Future of On-Demand Manufacturing

From furniture to prosthetics, the rise of on-demand manufacturing increasingly addresses the needs and desires of the individual user. While on-demand manufacturing is still in its infancy, it provides a stark contrast to the universal design model. The pursuit of universal product design has been driven, in part, by the mass manufacturing model born from the industrial revolution. The development of a product requires vast capital investment in research and development and tooling cost. Unfortunately, universal design inherently compromises the needs and desires of the individual for the needs and desires for the greater population of users. On-demand manufacturing is not without flaws and serious constraints, but it does show amazing promise for the future. Products such as furniture, lighting, housewares, mobile accessories, toys, games, musical instruments and prosthetics have been developed using this method. This session will highlight some of these innovative designs and discuss the advantages and challenges of on-demand manufacturing as it relates to customization, emotional durability, sustainability, localization and employment opportunities for designers.