The World’s Leading Online Design School

The People Behind

The Executive Board

The Executive Board oversees and guides the overall direction of the Foundation. The composition of the board reflects our mission to serve both industry and academia.

Don Norman
Don Norman
La Jolla California United States
Don Norman was the Founding Director of the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego (now retired), cofounder of the Nielsen Norman Group, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and former Vice President of Apple.
Daniel Rosenberg
Daniel Rosenberg
Founder
San Jose United States
Daniel Rosenberg is a global UX executive with a full range of skills in interaction design, usability metrics, game design and design management. He has dozens of publications in the field and is a frequently requested speaker at UX conferences.
Irene Au
Irene Au
Design Partner
San Francisco United States
Irene Au is the former head of UX and Design at Google. Currently, she is an operating partner at Khosla Ventures. She is dedicated to raising the strategic value of design and user research through better methods, processes, leadership and quality.
Jonas Löwgren
Jonas Löwgren
Professor of Interaction Design
Eksjö Sweden
Jonas Löwgren is an interaction designer, researcher and teacher. Currently a professor of interaction and information design at Linköping University. Areas of expertise include interactive visualization and the design theory of digital materials.
Ken Friedman
Ken Friedman
Distinguished Professor of Design
Melbourne Australia
Ken Friedman is a Research Professor and until recently the Dean of the Faculty of Design at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. He works at the intersection of three fields: design, management, and art.
Michael Arent
Michael Arent
Board Member
Palo Alto CA United States
Michael Arent is a Board Member of Counter Culture Labs (Oakland, CA) and involved in a humanitarian "bio-hacking" project, Open Insulin, to develop open-source insulin. He served as Design Director at GE Software Center of Excellence from 2013 to 2015.

Contributors

Our Contributors are responsible for creating engaging content. These highly regarded professors and industry experts reflect our focus on creating top quality literature on UX design.

Stéphanie Walter
Stéphanie Walter
UX Researcher and Inclusive Designer
Stéphanie is a User Researcher and Inclusive Designer who focuses on building user-centered, inclusive and accessible products and services. She spent the last 10+ years helping her clients deliver successful projects in different industries (bank, finance, automotive, academics, healthcare, press, travel, etc.) She likes to share her passion for her UX work all around the world. She has taken this beyond her successful blog, conferences and workshops. She discusses a wide range of topics, including mobile UX, enterprise UX, cognitive biases, inclusive design, design process and designer-developer relationship. You can follow her on social media for qualitative curated UX design content.
Henry Daggett
Henry Daggett
Design System Lead, Societe Generale CIB
Henry Daggett is a Digital Product Designer with a background in Fine art and Architecture. He currently leads Design Systems at Societe Generale CIB. He is driven by a passion for component design and seamless Designer/Developer collaboration. Beyond work, he delves into painting commissions, writes about Design Systems, and explores coding. Connect with Henry on LinkedIn for insights and design discussions.
Howard Pinsky
Howard Pinsky
Senior Design Evangelist, Adobe
Howard Pinsky is a Design Evangelist at Adobe with over five years of experience in this role and 15+ years in the industry. His mission is to share his knowledge and experience with the design and Photoshop communities through video, live streams, and creative events. Howard specializes in engaging and educational content, marketing strategies and provides insights and feedback for future products and updates. He has a passion for design, user experience, and graphic design and has reached over 70 million views on his training videos.
Sophia Prater
Sophia Prater
Lead UX Designer and Founder
Sophia Prater is the founder and lead UX designer at Rewired and the chief evangelist of Object-Oriented UX. Sophia teaches her OOUX methodologies at conferences, within companies, and through her OOUX Certification Program. She is the host of OOUX Happy Hour and the OOUX Podcast. She has brought the complexity-untangling magic of OOUX to companies such as Facebook, Google, Uber, HelloFresh, Atlassian, Autodesk, Delta Airlines, Microsoft, Adobe and many more. Sophia lives outside of Atlanta in the beautiful north Georgia mountains, the wine country of the southeast United States, with her husband and business partner, Luke.
Kay Carmichael
Kay Carmichael
Storyboard Artist and Teacher
Kay Carmichael is a Storyboard Artist and Teacher with 15 years experience in animation and board art. Her clients include Geico, Netflix and Disney. She has extensive experience with narrative and advertising clients and has recently directed a short film of her own, "Troll Girl." Visit her website to learn more about her work.
Michael Nebeling
Michael Nebeling
Associate Professor, University of Michigan
Michael has been critically studying novel interactive technologies since well before the iPhone. He is now a professor at the University of Michigan, where he leads the Information Interaction Lab, a human-computer interaction research group focused on virtual, augmented, and mixed reality applications (XR). With previous support from Microsoft, Meta, Epic Games, Mozilla, Lenovo, and Disney, the goal of his research has been to obtain a better understanding of key issues in XR and provide holistic design frameworks and tools for creating usable, effective, and safe XR experiences. At U-M, he is XR Faculty Innovator-in-Residence with the U-M wide XR Initiative. He teaches XR design both in the residential program at U-M and as part of his XR MOOC series, a three-course AR/VR specialization launched on Coursera in December 2020. Michael joined U-M in 2016 after completing a postdoc in the HCI Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD in the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich. Previously, he was on a one-year sabbatical at Meta Reality Labs Research in Redmond where he contributed to the design and development of future, everyday augmented reality interfaces.
Elaine Anzaldo
Elaine Anzaldo
Conversation Designer, Meta
Elaine Anzaldo is a seasoned Conversation Designer, having worked on voice technologies at companies such as Meta, NLX, Apple, and SRI International. As a designer for both influential voice assistants and the customer self-service industry, she has created natural conversational artifacts for voice, chat, and multimodal interfaces. Elaine is deeply passionate about designing for AI and exploring the benefits and implications of this cutting-edge technology. In her spare time, Elaine is an evangelist for Conversational AI, promoting her discipline via mentorships and articles about Conversation Design, while also co-producing the Voice This! Podcast. To learn more about Elaine or her work, visit her LinkedIn.
Katrin Suetterlin
Katrin Suetterlin
UX Content Strategist, Architect and Consultant
Katrin is a UX Content Strategist, Architect and Consultant turned Content Design Lead at insurance start-up wefox in Berlin. She is determined to remove barriers–within products and between silos. With a solid linguistic background and a degree in literature, her goal in life is to support others: she has been a freelance writer for almost 20 years, a language teacher, and also a performance marketer and SEO and social media specialist, until she has found her calling in the field of all things experience design, no matter which industry or setting. Katrin is an outspoken public speaker, for accessibility conferences and panels and she has been a guest in many podcast episodes, where she is constantly advocating for the advancement of neuroinclusion in digital designs. When she is not speaking or teaming up with peers, Katrin is writing pieces about inclusion, diversity and UX community topics on Medium and Substack.
Cornel Hillmann
Cornel Hillmann
XR Designer, CG Artist and Author
Cornel Hillmann is a CG Artist and XR Designer with over 20 years of experience in the media and entertainment, advertising and design industry. He’s worked with brands including Panasonic, Jaguar, The Future is Wild, The Singapore International Film Festival, Razer and many others. Cornel has lectured masterclasses for immersive media production, advanced 3D-, VR- and media design courses at Limkokwing University and is the author of Unreal for Mobile and Standalone VR and UX for XR published by Apress, New York (a division of Springer Nature).
Mia Guo
Mia Guo
Senior Product Designer, Magic Leap
Mia Guo is a seasoned senior product designer in the field of Extended Reality. Through her work she explores the frontiers of immersive technology, spatial computing, and the evolution of human interface interaction. With an extensive background in VR and AR, Mia has successfully spearheaded diverse design projects, ranging from law enforcement training simulations to enhancing working efficiency and facilitating remote manufacturing collaboration. She has a keen eye for innovation and an unwavering passion for pushing boundaries, Mia is dedicated to crafting captivating experiences that seamlessly blend the physical and virtual realms, driving the future of design and XR technology.
Darren Hood
Darren Hood
UX Designer, Author, Speaker and Podcaster
Darren is extremely passionate about all things UX, holding 28+ years of experience in the discipline. Darren’s professional footprint spans such organizations as Ford Motor Company, General Motors, DigitasLBi, MRM/McCann, Wunderman Digital, BD, Bosch, Ryder, Omnicell, Cengage Learning, Sherwin-Williams, IBM, Duracell, and USA Networks, to name a few. In academia, he serves and has served as an adjunct professor at several universities. Darren is one of the authors featured in the book 97 Things Every UX Practitioner Should Know. You can also hear Darren on The World of UX podcast, available through a host of popular sources. Darren is currently a doctoral candidate, completing a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Northcentral University.
Miklos Philips
Miklos Philips
Lead UX Designer/Product Designer
With over 17 years of experience, Miklos is an accomplished Lead UX Designer/Product Designer. He has worked across various industries in New York, San Francisco, LA, and most recently at the Financial Times in London. Miklos is a strong advocate for user-centered design and design thinking. He relishes the challenge of solving complex problems and creating elegant, simple solutions that surprise and delight users. He has a Design Strategy certification from the University of Sydney, which allows him to effectively balance user needs, business objectives, and technical feasibility. His product designs not only enhance user experience and make their lives easier, but also have a positive impact on the bottom line. In addition to his passion for UX and digital design, Miklos is an accomplished speaker at design events and conferences. He also shares his expertise by mentoring UX designers at various educational and professional organizations.
Jarvis Moore
Jarvis Moore
Senior Product Designer at LinkedIn
Jarvis Moore is a Senior Product Designer at LinkedIn with expertise in design systems and user-centric experiences. He is also a Founding Member of Black UX Labs, aiming to diversify the tech industry through education and creating opportunities for black designers. As a speaker, mentor, and teacher, Jarvis uses his unconventional path into tech to inspire others, showing them that a degree is not necessary to achieve their dreams. Outside of work, Jarvis is father of three. He is also a hobbyist photographer and an avid sneaker collector, appreciating the artistry and craftsmanship behind each unique design. Jarvis often incorporates elements of sneaker culture into his design work.
Ioana Teleanu
Ioana Teleanu
Senior Product Designer, UiPath; Founder, UX Goodies
Ioana Teleanu is an experienced UX Leader who has worked with renowned companies such as UiPath and ING Bank. She has also provided consulting and design services for several early-stage startups. Ioana is also a seasoned Design Educator who has established a community of over 250,000 UX enthusiasts through her social channel UX Goodies. She has created educational initiatives such as the Honest UX Talks podcast and a UX Design course on Domestika. Ioana is working on an exciting AI product at UiPath while simultaneously creating content on her social channels, with topics such as the future of UX design, design careers, AI, and more. Images: © Domestika, Used with permission.
David Hirotsu
David Hirotsu
Lead Designer, DocuSign
David Hirotsu is a lead designer at DocuSign, where he has spent the past 3+ years working on eSignature products, including new customer growth, enterprise applications for machine learning, and industry-specific solutions for real estate, HR, and FinServe. David has a diverse background in design, having previously worked in marketing, gaming, VR/AR apps, branding, and print. He is passionate about creating simple experiences for complex tools and has degrees in Mathematics / Economics and Design | Media Arts from UCLA. In his spare time, David is a musicophile, gardener, and vice president of his local archery club.
Stéfano Girardelli
Stéfano Girardelli
Senior Visual Designer, Wildlife Studios
Stéfano Girardelli is an experienced multidisciplinary designer who has worked on successful games such as Zooba, Sniper 3D, Racing Clash, Colorfy, Sky Warriors and War Machines. He has built Design departments, mentored designers, and optimized production pipelines. Stéfano believes that interface and experience design are essential to create immersive entertainment experiences. Stéfano currently works as a Senior Visual Designer on War Machines, one of Wildlife Studios' most profitable games, and is involved in creating a Design System to prototype games in Unity.
Niwal Sheikh
Niwal Sheikh
Product Design Lead, Netflix
Niwal Sheikh's love for design started during her childhood, where she explored various creative mediums. Growing up as an immigrant with a South Asian background, Niwal shifted from studying Environmental Science in university to pursue a career in design. She is passionate about creating accessibility in the design and technology industries, and has worked as a product designer in both health services and financial technology, for large enterprise banks and startups alike. As a mentor, Niwal coaches aspiring designers on portfolio work, interview skills, and career development. She has also shared her expertise as a speaker at events such as ReThink and ExperienceXD, and consults with various organizations on the best design practices. Currently, Niwal works as a product designer at Netflix and is excited to explore the entertainment and media industries.
Steve Bromley
Steve Bromley
Games Researcher and Author
Steve Bromley has been working with the games industry for over a decade, running playtests and helping companies create their own UX research process. Previously, he was a senior user researcher for PlayStation and worked on many of their top European titles, including Horizon Zero Dawn, SingStar, the LittleBigPlanet series and the PlayStation VR launch lineup. Steve started the Games User Research mentoring scheme, which has linked hundreds of students with industry professionals from top games companies such as Sony, EA, Valve, Ubisoft and Microsoft. He regularly speaks at games industry conferences and podcasts about games user research and playtesting, and wrote the bestselling book How To Be A Games User Researcher to share the expertise needed to work in the games industry. To learn more about Steve and to start your own career in Games User Research, visit his website gamesuserresearch.com
Vitaly Friedman
Vitaly Friedman
Senior UX consultant, European Parliament, and creative lead, Smashing Magazine
Vitaly is a senior UX consultant at the European Parliament and creative lead of Smashing Magazine. He loves beautiful content and does not give up easily. He studied computer science and mathematics, and while writing algebra proofs and preparing for software engineering, he discovered his passion for typography, interface design and writing. After working as a freelance designer and developer for 6 years, he co-founded Smashing Magazine back in 2006, a leading online magazine for designers and developers. His curiosity drove him from interface design to front-end to performance optimization to accessibility and back to user experience. Vitaly is the author, co-author and editor of all Smashing books, and a curator of all Smashing Conferences. He currently works as the creative lead of Smashing Magazine and front-end/UX consultant in Europe and abroad, working with European Parliament, Haufe-Lexware, Axel-Springer and a few other companies.
Elana Chapman
Elana Chapman
Accessibility Research Manager at Fable
Elana Chapman is a CPWA certified Accessible UX Researcher with a background in sign language linguistics. Since joining Fable in 2020, she has worked with assistive technology users and clients to create exceptional and inclusive product experiences.
Fernando Marcelo Hereñu
Fernando Marcelo Hereñu
Product and Design Manager at The Walt Disney Company
Fernando Hereñú is a passionate UX designer, team leader, and creative producer. He has over 20 years of experience working at successful entertainment companies. Fernando contributes to design innovation as well as leads design projects which constantly explore the next step of storytelling. Fernando started his career in the Cartoon Network interactive and gaming team. Then he joined as a partner in a new gaming startup company that has enormously served Microsoft, Nickelodeon, and the educational sector. Later on, he started as a UX & product designer at Disney taking leadership roles in Marvel, National Geographic, and cross brands initiatives.
Chris Clark
Chris Clark
Design Director, Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF)
As the IxDF Design Director, Chris Clark enjoys meeting the challenges of leading graphic designers, animators and artists to produce innovative, human-centric, world-class design solutions. Over twenty years of experience enables Chris to utilize a wide range of skills in creating, managing and delivering effective design solutions in multiple types of media, both leading a team and autonomously. His varied portfolio comes from time at Fortune Global 500 companies, ‘Triple A’ game studios, award-winning web and app companies, and the automotive sector, from Europe to the Middle East. Chris works to inspire a team of fellow designers and shape their work into world-class premium products and experiences. He brings out the best in any design team by nurturing established and up-and-coming talent. Chris uses from research benchmarking and sketch work to low and high-fidelity wireframes, user stories and flows, mood boards, conceptual graphics, rapid prototyping, augmented reality, animation and evaluation, to create user-centric intuitive experiences that delight and inspire.
Celia Hodent
Celia Hodent
PhD, Game UX Strategist and author of The Gamer's Brain
Celia Hodent is an expert in the application of cognitive science and psychology to improve products, systems, services, and video games. She currently leads an independent UX consultancy, working with a wide range of international media and enterprise companies. She works in-depth with companies to help ensure their products are both engaging and successful by considering the entire user experience they will provide to their audience. Celia conducts workshops and provides guidance on the topics of playful learning (“gamification”), ethics, implicit biases, and inclusion in tech and video games. Celia holds a PhD in psychology and has over ten years experience in the development of user experience (UX) strategy in the entertainment industry, and more specifically with videogame studios through her work at Ubisoft, LucasArts, and as Director of UX at Epic Games (Fortnite). She is founder and chair of the Game UX Summit, and a member of the Foresight Committee at CNIL (National Commission on Informatics and Liberty, an independent French administrative regulatory body). Celia is the author of The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX can Impact Video Game Design (2017), The Psychology of Video Games (2020), What UX Really Is: Introducing a Mindset to Great Experiences (2021), and co-editor of Game Usability: Advice from the Experts for Advancing UX Strategy and Practice in Videogames (2022). To learn more about Celia or contact her, visit her Twitter: @CeliaHodent or her blog: celiahodent.com.
Victor Udoewa
Victor Udoewa
Service Design Lead, NASA SBIR/STTR Program
Victor Udoewa is Chief Technology Officer, Chief Experience Officer, and Service Design Lead in the NASA Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Research (SBIR/STTR) Program. Before NASA, he was Director of Strategy at 18F, a civic consultancy for and inside the federal government. He started the education business unit, developed a line of educational products and services, directed strategy, managed the digital strategists’ practice, and served as a designer and strategist on partner projects. Previously, as a Global Education Instructional Designer and Training Development Specialist at Google, he designed learning experiences for people in low-to-middle-income countries around the world. The education could range from experiences covering how to develop web applications and how to use the internet to improve teaching and learning, to experiences exploring how to use internet technologies in post-disaster emergency response situations as well as global digital literacy. As a part of that work, he also advised Google in global energy and access work. Prior to Google he served at USAID and DHS as a science & technology policy advisor and development engineer focusing on infrastructure, post-disaster reconstruction, climate neutrality and global health. Building on his time teaching in secondary schools, he still teaches teachers as an educational specialist and adjunct professor of education focusing on science and math education through classes, workshops, and video series. He still conducts medical, engineering, or education research and is a certified health crisis and trauma counselor focusing (HIV/AIDS, miscarriage, etc.). Pre-COVID, he enjoyed singing in his male a cappella group and teaching salsa classes on the weekend. He still enjoys time with his wonderful family.
Pavitra S. Tandon
Pavitra S. Tandon
UX Manager, Smartbox Group
Pavitra S. Tandon started her career as a graphic designer but soon she found her calling in a different field of design. She is passionate about all things UX and integrates UX methodologies in everyday life too. She has over 14 years expertise integrating data and UX with Design Thinking techniques. She has worked for startups, consultancies, Fortune 500 companies alike for clients in over 30 countries, helping improve user experiences for over 30 million people worldwide. She has gained vast experience driving strategy sessions and facilitating innovation workshops, managing multi-disciplinary teams including remote teams and executive stakeholders across the organization. In her free time, she volunteers her expertise to startups and mentors junior designers.
Mia Cinelli
Mia Cinelli
Associate Professor of Art Studio and Digital Design, University of Kentucky
Mia Cinelli is an Associate Professor of Art Studio and Digital Design at the University of Kentucky. Her design practice encompasses an eclectic span of poetic and pragmatic products, installations, and graphics which have been exhibited nationally and internationally. Recently, her typographic works have been acknowledged with Best in Festival for New Work at DesignTO (2020), a Graphis Silver award for typeface design (2018), a Society of Typographic Arts “STA 100” award (2019), and a Communication Arts Typography award (2020). With an inquiry-driven practice, she is passionate about—and continually excited by—the possibilities of visual communication and human-centered design.
Kelly Jura
Kelly Jura
Vice-President, Brand & User Experience at ScreenPal
With over fifteen years of experience impacting design, marketing, software, and user experience, and her innate understanding of strategy and design-thinking, Kelly Jura is driven by how people experience ideas. Her deep knowledge of how consumer behaviors, perceptions, and user interaction with technology affect design has led to multiple design patents, industry accolades, and the publication of her thinking in journals and magazines including the Design Management Institute Review. Under her leadership, she helped brand and launch an innovative health-tech company and is currently focused on making communication and education more accessible through video technology with ScreenPal. Kelly is certified by MIT in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for User Experience and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Bridgeport.
Om Tandon
Om Tandon
Games UX Consultant
Om Tandon has been working in the games industry for 16+ years in several leadership and UX roles, building teams, processes & pipelines. He has created massively entertaining & monetizing experiences for the world’s best-known IPs & brands including Star Trek, Disney, 20th Century Fox, Hasbro, Ice Age, My Little Pony, Wizard of OZ, Marvel and many more. He has a bachelor's in Economics (Honours) and an advanced diploma in Advertising & Graphic Design. He is very passionate about innovation and he is a certified design thinking workshop facilitator with 70+ workshops under his belt. Om has worked across the globe in multicultural settings, from jobs in India and New Zealand to Ireland. Currently, Om works as a UX consultant for gaming and non-gaming software products. His services include UX, UR, and Market research for both established companies and startups. To learn more about Om or contact him, visit his LinkedIn.
Nakita M. Pope
Nakita M. Pope
Chief Chick and Principal Brand Strategist of Branding Chicks
Nakita M. Pope is the Chief Chick and Principal Brand Strategist of Branding Chicks, a boutique branding agency in Atlanta, GA with clients all over the United States. Over the past 25 years, she has worked as a strategist, graphic designer, creative director and brand manager which has given her experiences that inform how she works with her clients. Her passion for brand strategy also extends to her advertising strategy, branding and design professorship at The Creative Circus for the past 13 years. In 2019 she also took on an additional role there as their Diversity & Inclusion Advisor and a year later the Design Department Chair role. In 2020 she was also named one of Graphic Design USA Magazine’s People to Watch. Nakita is involved in several professional and non-profit organizations including AIGA where she was named an AIGA Atlanta Fellow in 2021 for her contributions to AIGA and the local, regional and national design community. She is a core team member of African-American Graphic Designers (AAGD). She is also the Vice President of the Board of Directors of Smart Girls on Campus and a board member of Good Thinking Atlanta. She is also the Co-Founder of Bella Boss, a subscription box for Black women business owners. Along with her work and passion projects, she now gets to share her knowledge and experiences with diverse audiences on the international speaking stage for organizations like The Female Founders Network, BBDO Atlanta, Phoenix Design Week, The One Club, Public Relations Society of America and the Georgia Tech College of Business. As always, her goal is to wield her crayons for good. You can connect with Nakita on her website or LinkedIn.
Jeff Johnson
Jeff Johnson
Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department, University of San Francisco
Jeff Johnson is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department of the University of San Francisco. After earning B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale and Stanford, he worked at Cromemco, Xerox, US West, Hewlett-Packard Labs, and Sun Microsystems. In 1990, he co-chaired the first Participatory Design conference, PDC'90. He serves on the SIGCHI U.S. Public Policy Committee. He has also taught at Stanford University and Mills College, and in 2006 and 2013 he taught HCI as an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He is a member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy, a SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement in Practice Awardee, and an ACM Distinguished Member. He has authored or co-authored many articles and chapters on Human-Computer Interaction, as well as the books GUI Bloopers, Web Bloopers, GUI Bloopers 2.0, Designing with the Mind in Mind, Conceptual Models (co-authored with Austin Henderson), Designing with the Mind in Mind, 2nd edition, Designing UIs for an Aging Population (co-authored with Kate Finn), and Designing with the Mind in Mind, 3rd edition.
Adam Thomas
Adam Thomas
Product Management Expert and Technologist
Adam Thomas is a technologist in Harlem, New York, focused on strategy, team organization, and product management. Adam mixes these “hard” topics with the context from culture and behavioral psychology to guide Product Managers towards making better decisions. With 10 years of experience as a wartime product person, Adam loves to create amidst chaos. Adam has been a public speaker in various forms for over a decade and has had the honor of presenting for Wizeline, Philosophie, Product Led Growth, Industry, Mind the Product, Denver Startup Week, Ethel’s Club, and many other leading industry platforms. Adam is also a writer—in addition to his blog, he contributes regularly to BuiltIn, Mind The Product, PM Insider, Product Marketing Alliance, Product Craft, ProductPlan, and Product School. Adam’s latest creation, Survival Metrics, is a roadmap for success designed to help product managers and teams understand when to push forward, when to pivot, and when to stop an initiative completely, resulting in fast, politically safe, and data-informed decisions. Adam believes that his ability to build comes from dancing with his fear of the unknown and leading with his curiosity.
Mel Slater
Mel Slater
Distinguished Investigator, Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona. Co-Director, Event Lab
Mel Slater is a Distinguished Investigator at the University of Barcelona in the Institute of Neurosciences, and co-Director of the Event Lab (Experimental Virtual Environments for Neuroscience and Technology). He was previously Professor of Virtual Environments at University College London in the Department of Computer Science. He has been involved in research in virtual reality since the early 1990s, and has been the first supervisor of 40 PhDs in graphics and virtual reality since 1989. He held a European Research Council Advanced Grant TRAVERSE 2009-2015 and has now a second Advanced Grant MoTIVE 2018-2023. He is a Research Award Winner of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2021. He is Field Editor of Frontiers in Virtual Reality, and Chief Editor of the Human Behaviour in Virtual Reality section. His publications can be seen on http://publicationslist.org/melslater. He is one of the Founders of the company Virtual Bodyworks S.L.
Szymon Adamiak
Szymon Adamiak
Co-Founder, Hype4 Mobile
Szymon Adamiak is a self-taught software developer. He abandoned a career as a lawyer to pursue his childhood dream to create software. In the last six years, he co-founded Hype4Mobile, a design-centered software house, and wrote two books to help other programmers master their craft—Frontend Unicorn and Find Your First Front-End Job. He loves good design and working with skilled designers all over the world. Currently, Szymon is building Hype4Academy, a learning platform for designers and developers. Szymon posts about programming and much more on Medium and Twitter.
Michał Malewicz
Michał Malewicz
Creative Director and CEO, Hype4
Michał Malewicz started designing and coding websites in 1998. In 2008, he started creating mobile apps and since then, he has worked on 500+ projects for both Fortune 500 companies, smaller businesses and countless start-ups. Since 2017, Michał has been teaching UI Design at SWPS University in Poland. In 2020, Michal released his first eBook Designing User Interfaces that is now trusted by thousands of designers and institutions worldwide. Michał is the Creative Director and CEO of Hype4, a popular design and development consultancy. He is also a key force behind Hype4 Academy, which he is currently building up as a resource for UI designers and Front-end developers worldwide. Michal is active and well known in the online design community through Twitter, and through his popular YouTube channel.
Mike Rohde
Mike Rohde
Designer, Teacher and Illustrator
Mike Rohde is a designer, teacher and illustrator with a passion for visualizing ideas and teaching people how to think visually and be more creative. He designs software, experiences, and services, using a human-centered approach and a collaborative attitude. Mike is the author of two bestselling books on sketchnoting: The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook. He also helps authors communicate ideas visually in books like REWORK and REMOTE, The $100 Startup and The Little Book of Talent. Mike leads online and in-person workshops where students learn sketchnoting techniques and build their own creative confidence. He also created The Sketchnote Army, a showcase of sketchnoters and their work from around the world. Mike interviews interesting visual thinkers to understand what makes them tick on the Sketchnote Army Podcast. You can follow Mike’s work on his website and on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Torrey Podmajersky
Torrey Podmajersky
Author, Speaker and UX Writer at Google
Torrey Podmajersky helps teams solve business and customer problems using UX content. She has written inclusive and accessible consumer and professional experiences for Xbox, Microsoft account, Windows apps, privacy, Microsoft education, OfferUp, and now works at Google. Her book Strategic Writing for UX was published by O’Reilly Media in 2019. Torrey’s high-intensity speaking style was refined in the crucible of teaching high-school chemistry, but even her most engaging lectures no longer require eye protection. Torrey has a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from University of Washington and a Masters in Curriculum & Instruction from Seattle University. She teaches and speaks internationally about UX writing.
Reginé Gilbert
Reginé Gilbert
UX Designer, Professor and Author
Reginé Gilbert is a user experience designer, educator, and author with over ten years of working in the technology arena. She believes in making the world a more inclusive and accessible place. She has a Bachelor's degree in Communication, where she focused on Intercultural and Organizational Communication. She also has a Master's degree in Marketing. Reginé is a Certified Project Management Professional through the Project Management Institute, a Certified Scrum Master, and a Certified Accessibility Professional. Her work includes integrating inclusive design practices across every aspect of training and mentoring in corporations. She is an advocate for the creation of inclusive and accessible experiences. Over the past couple of years, Regine has been a collaborator for Adobe's Inclusive Design education program. Reginé is a Visiting Industry Assistant Professor at New York University and a Design Consultant for large and small brands. She is a Keynote speaker and bestselling author of Inclusive Design for a Digital World, Designing with Accessibility in Mind, published by Apress. Some of the companies Reginé has had the pleasure of working for include Disney, JP Morgan, Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts, Ralph Lauren, Columbia University, and Vitamin Shoppe.
Ellen Lupton
Ellen Lupton
Writer, Designer, Curator and Educator
Ellen Lupton has delivered lectures and workshops around the world. Her latest book, Thinking with Type, 3rd Edition, is an all-new edition of her bestselling guide to typography. Other books include Graphic Design Thinking, Health Design Thinking, Graphic Design: The New Basics, The Senses: Design Beyond Vision, and Extra Bold. Follow her beloved Type Mom persona on Instagram, @ellenlupton. Ellen is faculty at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and curator emerita at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She received the AIGA Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Learn more about Ellen's work and projects on her website ellenlupton.com
Boon Sheridan
Boon Sheridan
Author and Design Researcher
Boon is a user experience designer, researcher, writer, and distiller-in-training. He helps teams identify real-world problems and infuse that knowledge into making products people can use without rage-closing their browsers or silently screaming at their phones. He's worked for bootstrapped startups and the sort of large companies that buy those startups on a whim. He's writing Getting Started in UX for Rosenfeld Media due to come out in 2021. He lives in a New England church built in the late 1800s and has the dust allergies to prove it. He's a lover of new cocktails, old records and would love to hear about your new favorite thing. You can find him at boonsheridan.com.
Joann Eckstut
Joann Eckstut
Color Consultant and Founder - The Roomworks
Joann Eckstut is a leading color consultant and interior designer who works with a wide range of professionals including architects, developers and manufacturers of name-brand products. She is the founder of The Roomworks, a prominent New York City interior design firm. Joann is one of twelve designers chosen by the Color Association of the United States to create the yearly interior / environmental forecast that is used by major industries to keep up with color trends. Arielle Eckstut and Joann Eckstut are the authors of the authoritative Secret Language of Color: Science, Nature, History, Culture, Beauty of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, & Violet, which Publishers Weekly called “terrifically entertaining and informative.” They are also the co-authors of What Is Color? 50 Questions and Answers on the Science of Color, which Steven Heller called, “enjoyably edifying.”
Arielle Eckstut
Arielle Eckstut
Author and Co-Founder of The Book Doctors and LittleMissMatched
Arielle Eckstut is the co-founder of The Book Doctors and the author of ten books. She speaks and writes about the science, history and culture of color and is regularly interviewed on the subject. She has appeared on or in, among others, NPR's All Things Considered, Time, and Business Insider.
Erik Stolterman
Erik Stolterman
Author and Professor in Informatics at Indiana University, Bloomington
Erik Stolterman is Professor in Informatics at the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is also Professor at the Institute of Design at Umeå University, Sweden. Erik has been studying systems thinking and design practice since the 80s. His main work is within the areas of HCI, interaction design, design practice, philosophy and theory of design. Erik has published a large number of articles and five books, including Thoughtful Interaction Design (MIT Press) and The Design Way—intentional change in an unpredictable world (MIT Press) and the most recently published Things That Keep Us Busy--The Elements of Interaction (MIT Press, 2017). Erik also collaborates with organization on how to create and maintain a designerly culture.
Cory Lebson
Cory Lebson
Principal and Owner - Lebsontech LLC
Cory Lebson is a user experience consultant with over 20 years of experience. He is the Principal and Owner of Lebsontech LLC, an organization that is focused on user research and evaluation, user experience strategy and UX training. Cory is the author of The UX Careers Handbook (Second Edition) and is a LinkedIn Learning instructor. Cory also speaks frequently, has been featured on the radio and has also published a number of articles in a variety of professional publications. Cory has an MBA in marketing and technology management, as well as an MA in sociology and a BS in psychology. Cory is a past president of the User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA) International and is also a past president of the DC Chapter of the UXPA. You can connect with Cory and follow his work on LinkedIn, Twitter and his website. You can find The UX Careers Handbook on its website and find Cory's courses on LinkedIn.
Donna Spencer
Donna Spencer
Author, Speaker and Design Consultant
Donna Spencer is an independent design consultant. With 20+ years of experience, she has expertise across the entire design spectrum – from strategy to delivery and everything in between – and she loves all of it. Donna has designed solutions for a wide range of problems across all kinds of industries, with a particular emphasis on information architecture and complex employee experience problems. Recognised internationally as a leading UX practitioner, Donna is a regular conference speaker and has written five UX-related books, including books on card sorting and information architecture. Donna also created UX Australia and ran it for 9 years. You can connect with Donna and read more about her work on her website and Twitter.
John Zeratsky
John Zeratsky
Designer, Author, Investor and Co-Creator of the Design Sprint
John Zeratsky is a veteran technology designer, keynote speaker, and the bestselling author of Sprint and Make Time. John helps leaders, entrepreneurs, and professional teams make better use of their time at work and become happier, more engaged humans. As a speaker and facilitator, he has worked with more than 200 of the world’s most important and innovative organizations, including Google, Harvard University, Slack, IDEO, and Netflix. John has reached millions with his writing about resetting the defaults of busyness and distraction. He’s written two bestselling books and published articles in The Wall Street Journal, TIME, Harvard Business Review, Wired, Fast Company, and many other outlets. For nearly 15 years, John was a designer for technology companies. At Google Ventures, he helped develop the Design Sprint and worked with startups like Uber, 23andMe, Flatiron Health, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Nest. Previously, John was a designer​ at YouTube, Google, and FeedBurner, which Google acquired in 2007. John studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin and graduated from the UW School of Human Ecology, where he’s now an advisor to the Dean and faculty. Originally from small-town Wisconsin, John has lived in Chicago and San Francisco with his wife Michelle. They spent 18 months traveling in Central America aboard their sailboat Pineapple before moving to Milwaukee in 2019.
Guthrie Weinschenk
Guthrie Weinschenk
COO, The Team W, Inc.
Guthrie Weinschenk is a Behavioral Economist and the COO of The Team W, Inc. He has a degree in Economics, a law degree, and is a licensed attorney. He consults, teaches, and specializes in business strategy, behavioral economics, and ethics. He is the host of the podcast Human Tech and author of I Love You, Now Read This Book. (It's About Human Decision Making and Behavioral Economics). You can follow Guthrie's work on The Team W website or on Instagram @guthrieweinschenk
Susan Weinschenk
Susan Weinschenk
Chief Behavioral Scientist and CEO, The Team W, Inc.
Susan Weinschenk, popularly known as "The Brain Lady", has a Ph.D. in Psychology, and is the Chief Behavioral Scientist and CEO at The Team W, Inc, as well as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. Susan consults with Fortune 1000 companies, start-ups, governments and non-profits, and is the author of several books, including 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People, 100 MORE Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People and How To Get People To Do Stuff. You can follow Susan's work on The Team W website and on Twitter @thebrainlady
Laura Klein
Laura Klein
Principal - Users Know and Senior Design Educator - IxDF
Laura fell in love with technology when she saw her first user research session over 20 years ago. Since then, she’s worked as an engineer, user experience designer, and product manager in Silicon Valley for companies of all sizes. Laura has written two books for product managers, designers, and entrepreneurs, Build Better Products (Rosenfeld Media ’16) and UX for Lean Startups (O’Reilly Media ’13). She is a frequent speaker at tech conferences, including SXSW, Lean Startup Conference, and Mind the Product. Laura also hosts a podcast with Kate Rutter, called What Is Wrong With UX. Laura is currently Principal at Users Know, a UX design consultancy, and a Senior Design Educator at Interaction Design Foundation.
Steven Hoober
Steven Hoober
President - Design, 4ourth Mobile
Steven Hoober wrote the book on mobile design patterns, and is best known for his ongoing research into how people really use touchscreen phones and tablets. He is a reformed unicorn who was earlier a database analyst and a front-end developer, but has focused on designing for mobile and multi-channel products since 1999. Steven designed the first Google mobile search, the first mobile app store (for Sprint), mobile browsers—including parts of the Samsung browser currently in use. Steven also worked on websites like Weather.com and Lowe's home improvement, as well as apps for companies like Hallmark, US Bank and Cummins diesel. Steven maintains a repository of mobile design and development information including all the content from the O'Reilly book Designing Mobile Interfaces on his 4ourth Mobile website, regularly writes for UX Matters magazine, and UX Magazine, among other writing and speaking.
Indi Young
Indi Young
Researcher, Author, Speaker and Coach
Indi Young is a freelance researcher who coaches, writes, and teaches about inclusive software strategy. Her work is rooted in the problem space, which she separates completely from any ideation, prototypes, testing, or development. Indi pioneered mental model diagrams and thinking styles to help teams truly pay attention to people, without letting cognitive bias and assumptions creep in. In 2008, her book Mental Models was published, which introduced the problem space research method. Her second book, Practical Empathy, was released in 2015, and she narrated it for Audible in 2016. She also runs a series of advanced online training about the importance of pushing the boundaries of your perspective. Indi began her career as a software engineer and then moved into interaction design. She worked with early tablets, and was one of the founders of Adaptive Path, the pioneering UX agency responsible for knowledge sharing via many channels. You can follow Indi on Twitter @indiyoung and access many resources on Medium and her website
Whitney Quesenbery
Whitney Quesenbery
Director, Center for Civic Design
Whitney is the co-founder and executive director of the Center for Civic Design. CCD is a nonprofit design and research organization whose motto and mission is that 'democracy is a design problem”. They work with election offices and advocacy groups across the country to improve the voter experience make it easier for more people to participate in elections. She brings to her work in civic design her UX research fascination with people and an obsession to communicate clearly with her goal of applying user research insights to design products where people matter. She has written three books on the subject, A Web for Everyone, Storytelling for User Experience, and Global UX: Design and Research in a Connected World. Before she was seduced by a little beige computer into software, usability, and interface design, Whitney was a theatrical lighting designer on and off Broadway. Through all of her work, Whitney helps UX practitioners keep users in mind throughout the creative process. Follow Whitney on Twitter @whitneyq or LinkedIn.
Wes Bush
Wes Bush
Founder and CEO, Product-Led Institute and Author, Product-Led Growth
Wes Bush is the founder and CEO of Product-Led Institute. He is the bestselling author of Product-Led Growth: How To Build a Product That Sells Itself and is one of the most sought-after product experts in the world. After working for some of the world’s fastest growing companies in the world, today he runs a successful consulting business where he trains teams around the globe how to turn their product into a growth engine. As founder and president of the Product-Led Institute, Wes spends his days teaching SaaS businesses how to flip the traditional sales playbook on its head and build products that sell themselves. Wes holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Global Business and Digital Arts from the University of Waterloo. A respected business consultant, Wes has challenged an entire industry to find a better way to approach SaaS growth.
Talia Wolf
Talia Wolf
Founder, GetUplift
Talia Wolf is a conversion optimization specialist who generates more revenue, leads and sales for her clients using emotional targeting and persuasion. As Founder of GetUplift, Talia and her team provide conversion optimization services for high-growth companies with customer-centric methods and data-driven analysis. Talia has been invited to teach conversion optimization on hundreds of stages such as Google, MozCon, Call To Action Conference, SearchLove, and many more. Recently, Talia was listed as one of the most influential experts in conversion optimization. You can follow Talia's work on her website and connect with her on Twitter.
Morgane Peng
Morgane Peng
Design Director at Societe Generale
Morgane Peng started her career in consulting and finance, where she explained structured investment solutions to diverse clients ranging from agricultural cooperatives in Paris to regional banks in in Hong Kong. She saw a design opportunity in the badly-designed, esoteric software used in financial systems and on the trading floor. In her quest to make enterprise financial management tools more user-friendly, she found a path to becoming a UX designer. Today, Morgane is responsible for the design vision and strategy of Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking. Working out of the 150-year old banking group's offices in London and Paris, she delivers united and meaningful experiences with her team across Societe Generale products—ranging across start-ups, corporates and financial institutions. Previously, Morgane ventured into various fields such as consulting, financial markets and tech. In her spare time, she’s a gamer at heart and works on an indie video game which was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter. You can connect with Morgane on her website and LinkedIn, or follow her on Twitter.
Joshua Seiden
Joshua Seiden
Co-Author of Lean UX and Founder of Seiden Consulting
Josh Seiden is a designer, product leader, author and entrepreneur who help clients launch new products and services. Josh has been creating great technology products for more than 25 years. As the Founder of Seiden Consulting, he works with clients as a coach and product leader. Working with both startups and large enterprises, he helps clients define strategy, discover and launch digital products and services, as well as improve the working processes of their teams. Josh is also the Co-founder of Sense & Respond Press, which publishes short, actionable books on Innovation, Digital Transformation and Product management. Earlier, he was a Founder and Principal at Neo, the influential digital product innovation studio. Josh has also spent time on Wall Street, where he was Head of Product Design at Liquidnet, the institutional brokerage network. He got his start in Silicon Valley, where, among other things, he led pioneering interaction design teams at Cooper. He is also a Founder and past President of the Interaction Design Association. Josh is a popular and highly sought-after speaker who appears at conferences around the world. He teaches workshops in Agile and Lean methods for product teams, and you can often find him working with teams and leaders as a coach and mentor. Josh is an award winning author whose recent work has been recognized by Thinkers50 for outstanding work in the field of Innovation. He is the co-author of "Sense and Respond, How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously" from Harvard Business Press. He is also co-author of "Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience," available at http://www.leanuxbook.com. His most recent book is "Outcomes Over Output" from S&R Press.
Todd Zaki Warfel
Todd Zaki Warfel
Author, Speaker and Leadership Coach
Todd Zaki Warfel is an author, keynote speaker, and executive leadership coach. Todd has held executive leadership roles at Twitter, Cisco, and Workday, where he learned a lot about building teams, developing purpose-driven leaders, and navigating the seas of change in the tech world. Todd is a leader in the fields of design and usability, and today, he works as an executive coach to help leaders and organizations to grow, innovate, and change to thrive. From his popular talks at universities and design conferences, Todd enjoys a reputation as a great storyteller—and in this Master Class, you can benefit from his skills and experience first-hand. In 2019, Todd published the Design Career Index annual report, the largest independent global study on the impact of executive leadership and career progression ladders on organizational health and maturity. Todd is also known for publishing Prototyping: a practitioner’s guide, which has become part of the core design curriculum for a number of university programs. To get in touch with Todd, you can visit his website.
Greg Nudelman
Greg Nudelman
Principal and Director of UX, DesignCaffeine
Greg Nudelman is a UX Designer and Product Strategist for Artificial Intelligence applications. For over 20 years, he has helped his clients—including Intuit, Cisco, Oracle, eBay, USAA, Wells Fargo, Safeway, Associated Press, and Groupon—to create a loyal customer following and generate value amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. An internationally acclaimed design workshop leader and accredited graduate course instructor, Greg has delivered over a 100 keynotes and workshops in 18 countries. He is also a widely-known author. His latest book, "UX for AI" is slated for release in 2023. Learn more about Greg and his work at this website.
Kevin Bethune
Kevin Bethune
Founder, dreams • design + life
Kevin Bethune is the Founder of dreams • design + life, a consultancy that offers design & innovation services using a human-centered approach. Kevin’s 20 year career spans engineering, business and design in equal proportion, positioning him at the cutting edge of design and innovation. Kevin began his career as a mechanical engineer in the nuclear power industry, where he gained deep product experience from projects with over $60 million in commercial impact. After his MBA, he joined Nike, where he drove advanced digital product creation capabilities in Nike’s Global Footwear product engine. Kevin developed a creative foundation through Nike and further studies, after which he helmed design & innovation ventures at two Tier 1 management consulting firms —Booz & Co. and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Kevin is widely known from his famous talks at TED, AIGA, Yale University and more. He also writes frequently for publications like Bloomberg, Design.Blog and DesignObserver.
Zoltan Kollin
Zoltan Kollin
Design Principal at IBM
Zoltan Kollin is a UX professional who has worked as a UX designer, speaker and trainer for over a decade. Currently, Zoltan leads an amazing team that designs video products at IBM. As a UX trainer, Zoltan teaches extensively about the field, with a special focus on A/B testing, usability, mobile design and remote user research. Zoltan is also well-known for his talks at various top UX conferences including UX Alive, UX Copenhagen and UX Scotland. He is also the co-organizer of Amuse UX Conference and was co-author of the popular blog UX Myths. When he’s not busy creating great products at IBM or bringing the UX community together at events, Zoltan writes about UX extensively on Medium.

Continent Managers

The Continent Managers are responsible for managing the Local Groups on each continent with the help of Country Managers and Local Leaders.

Asia

Europe

Oceania

South America

Country Managers

The Country Managers are responsible for managing the Local Groups in their respective countries. Each operates with the help of the Local Leaders in that country.

Argentina

Austria

Hannes Robier
Hannes Robier
CEO
Graz Austria
Hannes Robier is the founder of the usability and user experience-consulting agency youspi GmbH, as well as the organizer of the World Usability Congress. He has worked for +10 years in the field of UX, Customer Experience, Usability and Service Design.

Belgium

Chile

Colombia

France

Germany

Greece

India

Nadeem Khan
Nadeem Khan
Principal Designer
Mumbai Maharashtra India
With 15+ years of UX consulting experience and a background in graphics, eLearning, and web design, I create engaging experiences aligned with user needs. I've worked with UN agencies, Alexion, Mondelez, and more. I lead IxDF Mumbai and Design coach.

Indonesia

Iran

Ireland

Italy

Hoang Huynh
Hoang Huynh
Head of CX & Design @ Value Partners
Milan Italy Italy
I design strategies and workflows for big companies in order to create the conditions for outstanding experiences to happen. He helps companies to create services and products, with both traditional and digital touchpoints.

Japan

Jordan

Kazakhstan

Mexico

Mozambique

Peru

Sandra Maria Vilchez Cajo
Sandra Maria Vilchez Cajo
UX Consultant and Professor
Lima Peru
Sandra is a Strategic Design, Service Design, Design Thinking and innovation-oriented Professional as well as a Local Leader of IxDF. She's currently part of the IxDF Design League as a coach to help more Spanish speakers (only)

Portugal

Romania

South Africa

Spain

Juan José Elizondo
Juan José Elizondo
Experience Design and Research
Madrid Spain
Enthusiast of usability, accessibility and user experience, as an experience designer and Spain Country Manager of the Interaction Design Foundation I research and develop new models for customer experience and service design.

Sweden

Taiwan

Turkey

United Kingdom

United States

Venezuela

Vietnam