Liu Lectures

March 25, 2026

"Beeple is a world renowned digital artist, whose groundbreaking work explores humanity's evolving relationship with the digital world." His practice merges pop culture, technology, and political commentary. He achieved international prominence following the sale of Everydays: The First 5000 Days at Christie's, which elevated digital art and blockchain-based ownership in global art discourse.

The lecture serves as a preview for Beeple's exhibition opening at NODE Foundation in Palo Alto, described as "a nonprofit foundation dedicated to transforming how digital art is experienced."

NODE Foundation: https://nodefoundation.com/about

February 3, 2026

"In 20 to 40 years' time, technologies such as CRISPR will transform humanity and redefine many of society's structures. When humans are born outside of the body in labs, who will shape these reproductive habitats– and for what purpose?"

"Calling forth these likely futures, we explore new and interdisciplinary avenues for design through a process of narrative prototyping: provoking impossible questions and exploring ways in which science fiction can inspire real-world discourse."

"Incubating a mind state that trusts the unknown, Lucy develops methods for pioneering new aesthetics, new stories, and new ways of being together in the world."

"Artist Lucy McRae leads a multi-disciplinary, art-research studio investigating the impact future technologies have on human evolution. Designing hypothetical worlds through various visual mediums such as film, kinetic sculpture, and textile design, her work sparks discourse and research surrounding emerging fields of science. McRae's genre-bending sci-fi films and installations gesture to a not-so-distant future where scientific advancements will enable humans to be grown in laboratories outside of the womb. Charting spheres of art and technology not yet labeled or defined, she uses speculation as a tool to explore ideologies and ethics about who we are, and where we are headed."

October 16, 2025

Jason Chatfield is an award-winning Cartoonist, Author & Comedian based in New York City.

His work has appeared in The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, Esquire, Variety, The Weekly Humorist, American Bystander, Wired, and Air Mail among others. His art has been exhibited in France, the UK, Australia, and all over the United States and in books published by Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, & Humorist Media. His latest book with Andrews McMeel Publishing was released in Spring 2025.

For 16 years, he has been an internationally syndicated comic strip cartoonist, writing and drawing the iconic 102-year-old strip, Ginger Meggs, published daily through Andrews McMeel Syndication.

Chatfield is a past President of both the National Cartoonists' Society (Est. 1946) and Australian Cartoonists Association (Est. 1924). He is the youngest cartoonist to ever hold either of these positions.

His weekly newsletter New York Cartoons is one of Substack's Featured Publications for 2023 & 2024 with over 19,000 weekly subscribers.

He is the portrait illustrator for Waking Up, the award-winning meditation app created by Sam Harris.

Jason has also worked as a stand-up comedian for 18 years and appears on HBO Max as a Judge and Host on the TV Series, Buddy Vs. Christmas with Buddy "Cake Boss" Valastro.

The New Yorker: https://www.jasonchatfield.com/thenewyorker

MAD Magazine: https://www.jasonchatfield.com/blog/finally-part-of-the-usual-gang-of-idiots

National Cartoonists' Society: https://nationalcartoonists.com/

Australian Cartoonists Association: https://cartoonists.org.au/

New York Cartoons: https://www.newyorkcartoons.com/

portrait illustrator for Waking Up: https://www.jasonchatfield.com/blog/waking-up-app-portraits

appears on HBO Max as a Judge and Host: https://youtu.be/C9aZIogIaAU

"Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., was working a corporate job when, at nearly forty, he discovered the art of letterpress printing on a tour of Colonial Williamsburg."

He pursued formal training, earning an MFA in graphic design at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Kennedy now operates Kennedy Prints!, a letterpress printshop in Detroit. His work has been featured in prominent publications including Hyperallergic, The New York Times, and The Economist, with exhibitions across dozens of U.S. museums and galleries—including Poster House, the Brooklyn Public Library, the Library of Congress, and collections at MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

February 12, 2025

Natsai Audrey Chieza is described as "a visionary designer and thought leader" who founded Faber Futures and co-founded Normal Phenomena of Life (NPOL). Faber Futures, launched in 2018, is characterized as "a pioneering design agency that melds consumer biotechnology advancements with real-world applications." NPOL was established in 2023 as a consumer brand offering biotech products online, demonstrating "how biotechnology can generate new materials that can be beautifully designed to support climate goals."

Her work involves partnerships across biotech, consumer sectors, and cultural institutions using "collaborative, story-driven strategies to catalyse engagement and concrete action on critical issues." Notable clients include Ginkgo Bioworks, adidas, the Design Museum, MIT Media Lab, and the World Economic Forum. As a member of the WEF's Global Futures Council on Synthetic Biology, she advocates for integrating design and culture in bioeconomy policy. Her accomplishments include the 2019 INDEX award and speaking engagements at SxSW, TED, and Design Indaba.

Natsai's website: https://www.natsaiaudrey.co.uk/

Normal Phenomena of Life (NPOL): https://normalphenomena.life/

October 15, 2024

"e-Types & Playtype: Straight out of Copenhagen. Playtype type foundry's Partner and Brand Director Frederikke Rindom talks about their approach to branding and type design."

"Pasties, LEGO, mermaids – type and brand design? Copenhagen-based branding agency e-Types and type foundry Playtype are out to showcase a new side of Danish design and have boiled it down to three key things. Through a series of real-life cases, Partner and Brand Director Frederikke Rindom talks about e-Types' and Playtype's personal and, well, Nordic approach to branding and type design – while revealing the three key themes to remember when capturing the heart of a brand in a truly simple, intuitive, and beautiful way."

April 4, 2024

"In this presentation, Dr. Dori Tunstall will address two aspects of decolonizing design: Putting Indigenous First and Dismantling the Racist Bias in the European Modernist Project in Design. She provides a framework to understand one's positionality vis-a-vis Indigenous sovereignty and how that sets conditions for design that provides liberatory joy to bodies and communities. By showing the racism inherent in the focus on modernist design as the standard, she demonstrates in both theory and practice how institutions and individuals can open space for decolonial and diverse perspectives on making."

Dr. Elizabeth "Dori" Tunstall (Stanford PhD 1999) is a distinguished design anthropologist, celebrated author, visionary organizational design leader, consultant, and coach. As the renowned author of "Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook," she is a path-breaker of progressive approaches that challenge conventional design paradigms that exclude and harm Indigenous cultures in order to decolonize them and champion diversity, equity, and inclusivity practices in communities and organizations. With a global career encompassing an Associate Professor of Design Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Swinburne University in Australia, respectively, Dori made history as the first black and black female Dean of a Design Faculty anywhere at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. Her accomplishments have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, notably the 2022 Sir Misha Black Award for Distinguished Service to Design Education, the inaugural BADG of Honour for Design Education from the Black Artists and Designers Guide, and the 2023 SEGD Excellence in Design Education Award. Dori's profound commitment to making an expansive impact beyond academia has recently led her to establish Dori Tunstall, Inc., a firm dedicated to decolonizing and diversifying institutional processes for companies and organizations through corporate education, executive coaching, and strategic consulting.

Lecture recording

October 27, 2023

"Thu, Nov 9, 2023, 4:30 PM PT" - Join for a panel discussion with authors of two new d.school guides, moderated by Scott Doorley of the d.school.

Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, Ph.D., is a scientist turned designer who has created and facilitated a wide range of learning experiences in design, creativity, and innovation at the Stanford d.school and beyond. She co-directs the University Innovation Fellows Program and is an adjunct professor at the Stanford d.school.

Grace Hawthorne is the Founder/CEO of Paper Punk and Foldmade, and an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University's d.school. Previously, she founded ReadyMade, the culturally groundbreaking design magazine and co-authored the critically acclaimed book on reuse design, ReadyMade: How to Make Almost Everything (Random House/Potter).

Scott Doorley is the creative director at the d.school. He co-wrote the book, make space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration, and was a co-lead on the Stanford 2025 project imagining the future of on-campus education. With a background and degree in filmmaking from UCLA, Scott also teaches classes in design & communication and his art & design works have been exhibited at the Design Museum in London, the San Jose Museum of Art, and others.

Experiments in Reflection book: https://dschool.stanford.edu/book-collections/experiments-in-reflection

Make Possibilities Happen book: https://dschool.stanford.edu/book-collections/make-possibilities-happen

May 10, 2023

Greg Hoffman is a global brand leader, former NIKE Chief Marketing Officer, and founder and principal of the brand advisory group Modern Arena.

For over 27 years, Greg held marketing, design, and innovation leadership roles at NIKE, including time as the brand's CMO. In his most recent role as NIKE's Vice President of Global Brand Innovation, he led teams tasked with envisioning the future of storytelling and consumer experiences for the brand.

Greg oversaw NIKE's brand communications and experiences as NIKE was solidifying its position as one of the preeminent brand storytellers of the modern era and the leading innovator in digital and physical brand experiences. His role in the rise of marketing and design through that period was recognized in 2015 when Fast Company named him one of the "Most Creative People in Business." He's also been recognized through Business Insider's 50 Most Innovative CMO's and AdAge's Power Players annual lists.

Greg shares lessons and stories on the power of creativity from his nearly three decades at Nike, covering how to build powerful emotional attachments between your products and the people you serve.

Emotion by Design: https://www.emotionbydesign.co

Nice Kicks Interview: https://www.nicekicks.com/interview-with-former-nike-cmo-greg-hoffman/

Design Better Podcast: https://thecuriositydepartment.substack.com/p/greg-hoffman

February 16, 2023

"Steve is Vice President of Design with Netflix and a Board member with Zendesk. His industry background includes; entertainment, gaming, social networking, and productivity software, and he specializes in designing globally inclusive, diverse, and innovative products and organizations."

October 7, 2022

Join us on Friday October 21st at 100pm PST on Zoom for a panel discussion with the authors of three new d.school guides: This Is a Prototype by Scott Witthoft, You Need a Manifesto by Charlotte Burgess-Auburn, and Creative Hustle by Olatunde Sobomehin and Sam Seidel, moderated by Scott Doorley of the d.school.

We also have a limited number of tickets for those who would like to attend the event in person.

This Is a Prototype - Learn more and buy: https://dschool.stanford.edu/book-collections/this-is-a-prototype

You Need a Manifesto - Learn more and buy: https://dschool.stanford.edu/book-collections/you-need-a-manifesto

Creative Hustle - Learn more and buy: https://dschool.stanford.edu/book-collections/creative-hustle

Audio recording of the event: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dqiwzkno4b3liqp/Liu%20Lecture%20D.school%20Guides%20Fall%202022%20Event%20Audio.m4a?dl=0

May 9, 2022

Join us on Wednesday, May 18th at 1230 PST on Zoom for a panel discussion with the authors of three new d.school guides, Navigating Ambiguity by Andrea Small and Kelly Schmutte, Design for Belonging by Susie Wise, and The Secret Language of Maps by Carissa Carter, hosted by the d.school's Scott Doorley.

Dr. Susie Wise is a designer and teacher with experience in the education, tech, and social sectors. She coaches leaders in innovation practices, equity design, and storytelling for inclusion; is the founder and former director of the K12 Lab Network at the Stanford d.school; and is a co-creator of Liberatory Design.

Andrea Small is a design leader, strategist, and educator. As a former d.school teaching fellow, she and her cohort created award-winning education experiences, including the d.school's first "Navigating Ambiguity" curricula. Currently she teaches "Innovations in Inclusive Design" at the d.school, and leads storytelling and design strategy for Samsung Research America's R&D Innovation team. Andrea has worked with some of the world's most iconic brands, including the Nike Foundation, Nivea, Facebook, iRobot, Starbucks, and Herman Miller.

Kelly Schmutte is a designer, educator, and entrepreneur. At the d.school she designs learning experiences with lasting impact, reimagining the future of higher education (Stanford 2025), creating purpose-driven life tools for high schoolers, and building out the d.school's Navigating Ambiguity curriculum, including the design and launch of the "Library of Ambiguity" and a large-scale public Ambiguity Experience at SF Design Week. Kelly teaches core d.school and Stanford Product Design classes alongside d.school founder David M. Kelley. She and her ballet shoe start-up, PerfectFit Pointe, have been featured in the New York Times.

Carissa Carter is a designer, geoscientist, and Academic Director at the Stanford d.school. Carissa drives the d.school's pedagogy and teaches courses on the intersection of data and design, design for climate change, maps, and the visual sorting of information. She helped lead the d.school's seminal Stanford 2025 project on the future of higher education and pursues projects at the crossover between design, science, and emerging technology.

Scott Doorley is the creative director at the d.school. He co-wrote the book, make space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration, and was a co-lead on the Stanford 2025 project imagining the future of on-campus education. With a background and degree in filmmaking from UCLA, Scott also teaches classes in design & communication and his art & design works have been exhibited at the Design Museum in London, the San Jose Museum of Art, and others.

February 17, 2022

Join us for a film screening of We Are As Gods, which offers a deep dive into the many sides of Stewart Brand—creator of The Whole Earth Catalog, an influential member of Ken Kesey's 'The Merry Pranksters,' and founder of the modern environmental movement. The film screening will be followed by a panel discussion with film director Jason Sussberg, John Markoff and Megan Palmer.

Stewart Brand has been at the center of some of the most influential movements of the last century: including the creation of The Whole Earth Catalog, which Steve Jobs famously called 'Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google existed.' Brand's approach to his work and life influenced many who have gone on to shape our modern world. Today in his 80's, he's working on one of his most ambitious projects yet: wildlife conservation through de-extinction.

Jason Sussberg is a documentary filmmaker that focuses on AH !(Arts & Humanity) in STEM. He holds an MA in Film from Stanford and is using crypto channels to distribute his film We Are As Gods.

John Markoff is a Pulitzer prize-winning, best-selling author who has been one of the leading reporters on technology for the New York times for several decades. He is currently an HIA affiliate and CASBS Fellow studying artificial intelligence and the future of work.

Megan J. Palmer is the Executive Director Bio Policy & Leadership Initiatives and an Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at Stanford. She is also a board member of Revive & Restore, which was founded by Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan to enhance biodiversity through the genetic rescue of endangered and extinct species.

check out this write up from our event moderator, Lisa Kay Solomon: https://medium.com/@lisakaysolomon/the-man-who-saw-and-sparked-the-future-again-and-again-and-again-55a279ce1d02

January 20, 2022

Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva and the creator of Guy Kawasaki's Remarkable People podcast. He is an executive fellow of the Haas School of Business (UC Berkeley), and adjunct professor of the University of New South Wales. He was the chief evangelist of Apple and a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation. He has written Wise Guy, The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media, Enchantment, and eleven other books. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University, an MBA from UCLA, and an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

October 7, 2021

Named "one of the most creative people in business by Fast Company" and "one of the most influential designers working today" by Graphic Design USA, Debbie Millman is an author, educator, strategist and host of the podcast Design Matters. Design Matters is the first and longest running podcast about design and Debbie has interviewed 300 design luminaries and cultural commentators. The show has over 5 million downloads per year, a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award and iTunes designated it one of the best podcasts of 2015.

Debbie's visual essays have appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Print and Fast Company. Her artwork has been exhibited in the Boston Biennale, Chicago Design Museum, Anderson University, SVA, LIU, Wolfsonion Museum and Czong Institute for Contemporary Art. She has been artist-in-residence at Cranbrook University, Old Dominion University and Notre Dame University. She has designed wrapping paper and beach towels for One Kings Lane, greeting cards for Mohawk, MOO and Card-To-Art, playing cards for DeckStarter, notebooks for Shutterstock and Baron Fig and T-shirts for Within The Fold.

Debbie was President, Design and Chief Marketing Officer at Sterling Brands for over 20 years where she worked with over 200 of the world's largest brands, including the redesign of Burger King, merchandising for Star Wars, and positioning and branding the No More movement. She is a frequent speaker and has moderated Design Yatra in India, presented keynote lectures at Rotman School of Management, Princeton University, Hong Kong Design Association, TypoBerlin, Melbourne Writers Festival, Festival of Art + Design in Barcelona and more.

Debbie is the Editorial/Creative Director of Print and a board member of the Joyful Heart Foundation, Performance Space 122 and the Type Directors Club. She is President Emeritus of AIGA, author of six books and co-founder of the world's first graduate program in branding at the School of Visual Arts in NYC.

May 26, 2021

Sandy leads a human-centered design team at D-Ford Detroit, pushing the edge of Ford's future strategies. They design new products, services, and ventures that customers love and drive business profitability.

Prior to this role, Sandy was the global leader of Experience Design at Ford, transforming Ford's ways of working through human-centered design and creating new possibilities for future customer and business value.

Sandy was also Managing Director at the agency Punchcut, and Design Manager at Motorola.

April 28, 2021

Sara Seager is the Class of 1941 Professor of Planetary Science, Professor of Physics, and Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her past research is credited with laying the foundation for the field of exoplanet atmospheres, while her current research focuses on exoplanet atmospheres and the future search for signs of life by way of atmospheric biosignature gases. Professor Seager is involved with a number of space-based exoplanet searches including as the Deputy Science Director for the MIT-led NASA mission TESS, as the PI for the on-orbit JPL/MIT CubeSat ASTERIA, and as a lead for Starshade Rendezvous Mission (a space-based mission concept under technology development for direct imaging discovery and characterization of Earth analogs).

Before joining MIT in 2007, Professor Seager spent four years on the senior research staff at the Carnegie Institution of Washington preceded by three years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. Her PhD is from Harvard University, and her BSc from the University of Toronto. Among other accolades, Professor Seager is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a 2013 MacArthur Fellow.

March 31, 2021

Jason Mayden is President of Fear of God Athletics. In his previous role at Nike, Jason oversaw the design and execution of all conceptual products, data-driven innovations, and inline lifestyle and performance product for Jordan Brand, as the Senior Global Design Director. During his 13+ year career at Nike, Mayden led and contributed to the creation of innovative sport performance products for athletes and cultural icons such as Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Derek Jeter, and Michael Jordan.

In 2011, Mayden successfully received his Master's in General Management and Social Innovation from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and shortly thereafter he returned to Nike as the Global Director of Innovation for Nike's Digital Sport division where he was responsible for the strategic investigation of new technologies and services, such as the Nike Fuel Band and the Nike+ platform.

Currently, Jason is an advisor, d.Fellow and Media Designer at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, a frequent lecturer at Stanford University's prestigious Graduate School of Business, and an advisory board member to his undergraduate alma mater, the College for Creative Studies.

Jason has been interviewed by PBS, Afrotech, and the Design Better Podcast among many other interviews.

PBS: https://www.pbs.org/video/episode-102-jason-mayden-lbxllj/

Afrotech: https://afrotech.com/black-people-are-super-heroes-and-lessons-from-michael-jordan

Design Better Podcast: https://www.designbetter.co/podcast/jason-mayden

April 16, 2019

Machine Generation and Evaluation of Design Concepts Using Large-Scale, Publicly-Available Data

The objective of this research is to develop machine learning methods that predictively improve the outcome of design solutions through the acquisition, fusion and mining of large-scale, publicly-available data. It has been reported that 70-80% of the manufacturing costs of a product are determined during the design phase. Towards enhancing the efficiency of the design process and creating personalized design solutions, our research focuses on three core thrusts:

Research Thrust 1: Feature Discovery and Quantification: Develop machine learning algorithms that mine large scale, publicly-available data in order to identify and quantify relevant design features.

Research Thrust 2: Scalable Generative Design: Develop machine learning models (currently based on Deep Neural Network principles) that result in the automatic, scalable generation of design concepts (both 2D sketches and 3D CAD models).

Research Thrust 3: Scalable Design Evaluation: Develop design evaluation methods (currently based on Deep Reinforcement Learning principles) that result in the automatic evaluation of design concepts, based on computer-learned physics of an environment.

The fundamental concepts of machine learning-driven design extend well beyond consumer products and include the design of more efficient manufacturing processes (e.g., machine learning models for improving the efficiency of additive manufacturing processes), healthcare systems (e.g., machine learning models for early detection, as well as long-term management of patients' health-related abnormalities), and educational experiences (e.g., advancing personalized learning through adaptive machine learning models).

Dr. Conrad Tucker holds a joint appointment as Associate Professor in Engineering Design and Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. He is also affiliate faculty in Computer Science and Engineering. Dr. Tucker is the director of the Design Analysis Technology Advancement (D.A.T.A) Laboratory. His research focuses on the design and optimization of systems through the acquisition, integration and mining of large scale, disparate data. Dr. Tucker recently accepted a faculty position in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), with a Courtesy Appointment in the School of Computer Science's Machine Learning Department and will be transitioning from Penn State to CMU in Fall 2019.

Dr. Tucker has served as PI/Co-PI on federally/non-federally funded grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), the Office of Naval Research (ONR) through the NSF Center for e-Design, and most recently, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). He is currently serving as PI and Site Director of the NSF Center for Health Organization Transformation (CHOT), an NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center at Penn State. In February 2016, he was invited by National Academy of Engineering (NAE) President Dr. Dan Mote, to serve as a member of the Advisory Committee for the NAE Frontiers of Engineering Education (FOEE) Symposium. Dr. Tucker is the recipient of the American Society of the Engineering Education's (ASEE) Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP) award and conducted research at the Air Force Institute of Technology at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base during Summer 2014 and Summer 2015. He received his Ph.D., M.S. (Industrial Engineering), and MBA degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Dr. Tucker is part of the inaugural class of the Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) program, funded by a $1 billion grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

February 13, 2019

For nearly 45 years Professor Dubowsky, his colleagues and students in the MIT Field and Space Robotics Laboratory (The FSRL) has been addressing important engineering problems by combining control theory, system modeling, design algorithms, and experimental studies. The problems addressed at the FSRL has included such subjects as: micro-fuel cell power supplies, MRI diagnostic methods, the design and control of very large space telescopes, polymer actuators, and control and planning algorithms for robots to explore the caves and surfaces of Mars. Sponsors for this work has included government agencies and companies from the US and also abroad. The goals of these research projects were largely set in consultation with the sponsors. As with most university research projects, they gave the freedom for creative thinking and problem solving, funds for equipment and graduate students, and part of faculty salaries. The also enabled the education of PhD students and writing scholarly and professional publications.

About 10 years ago, an unconventional thing happened. A prospective sponsor came to MIT with substantial funds for 7-year program, but without any technical objective in mind. A group of faculty rose to the challenge and proposed to address the largely independent problems of clean energy and clean water. My group (the FSRL) took of the problem optimally designing, controlling and operating the highly nonlinear problems of water purification powered by photovoltaics in uncertain conditions and environments. In this talk the technical problem and its solutions will be briefly discussed.

An adventure started when field trials of prototypes in the jungles in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico showed the technical and economic potential. Since it is beyond the scope of a university to produce systems for communities and people that needed them, the commercialization of the technology this seemed like a place for a startup. Also at this time, venture funds and investors were promulgating the notion of "impact investing"- investing in enterprises with both a financial promise and with important social impact. In response a startup, PV Pure Inc., was founded with the motto "Do Well by Doing Good." The remainder of the talk will focus on this part of the adventure.

Professor Dubowsky spent the first 8 years of his career designing scientific instruments and optical systems in industry for the DOD while studying for his PhD from Columbia University. He then joined the faculty at UCLA for 10 years until he moved MIT with a joint appointment in the Mechanical Engineering and of Aeronautics and Astronautics departments for the last 34 years of his academic career where he was the Director of the MIT Field and Space Robotics Laboratory. Much of his teaching and research has focused on robotic systems and medical devices and systems. Professor Dubowsky authored, or co-authored, with his students, nearly 350 papers. His research contributions have included; the adaptive and optimal control of robots, modeling of flexible manipulators, autonomous control of high speed vehicle in rough terrain, fuel cell power for field robotic systems, energy/clean water systems for challenging field environments and medical robotic devices for the elderly, as surgery in closed bore MRIs, and for the treatment of Parkinson's patents. Dr. Dubowsky has served as an advisor and consultant to the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Science/Engineering, the Department of Energy, the US Army, NASA, ESA and industry. He is a Life Fellow of both the ASME and IEEE. Since retiring from MIT in 2015, Dr. Dubowsky has focused his energy on co-founding, and being the Chief Technical Officer of a startup company, PV Pure Inc. in Cambridge, MA.

January 29, 2019

In this talk, Tahira will describe several research and engineering projects that were largely inspired by observations and personal experiences as a woman and a woman of color. Although engineers are called upon to address numerous problems that are human-centered, there are some problems that are best addressed by members of the population most affected. She will discuss several projects that demonstrate how the intersection of diversity, engineering, and design can help to frame novel problems and identify solutions.

Tahira Reid is an Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University and is the director of the Research in Engineering and Interdisciplinary Design (REID) Laboratory. Her research interests include integrating human considerations in engineering systems and the design process. Her research program has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and other sources. Some of her accomplishments have been featured in the National Geographic magazine, National Public Radio (NPR), Reuters, the Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, and other media outlets. Prior to arriving at Purdue in 2012, she completed a postdoctoral position in the Mechanical Engineering department at Iowa State working in the Interdisciplinary Research in Sustainable (IRIS) Design Laboratory under the direction of Dr. Erin MacDonald. In 2010, she received her PhD from the University of Michigan in Design Science, with Mechanical Engineering and Psychology as her focus areas. Dr. Reid received both her BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 2000 and 2004, respectively.

November 27, 2018

This talk will present ongoing trans-disciplinary research and design spanning across the fields of cell biology, materials science, physics, fiber science, fashion, electrical and systems engineering, and architecture.

The research focuses on contextual, material and formal intersections between architecture, science and technology. Through visualization and materialization of complex datasets, the work combines crafts-based techniques with digital fabrication alongside questions related to the body and information mediation.

The material research examines nonlinear fabrication and self-assembly and offers novel possibilities that question and redefine architecture within the greater scope of generative design and fabrication.

Jenny E. Sabin is an architectural designer whose work is at the forefront of a new direction for 21st century architectural practice — one that investigates the intersections of architecture and science.

She holds the Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger Professorship and directs graduate studies at Cornell University's Department of Architecture, where she established a new advanced research degree in Matter Design Computation. She is principal of Jenny Sabin Studio and Director of the Sabin Lab at Cornell AAP. Educational credentials include degrees in ceramics and interdisciplinary visual art from University of Washington and a master of architecture from University of Pennsylvania. Honors include a 2010 Pew Fellowship in the Arts, USA Knight Fellowship in Architecture, and 2014 Architectural League Prize. Her work has exhibited internationally; her book LabStudio: Design Research Between Architecture and Biology was published in 2017. She won MoMA & MoMA PS1's Young Architects Program with her submission, Lumen.

November 6, 2018

Stefanie Mueller is the X-Career Development Assistant Professor in the MIT EECS department joint with MIT Mechanical Engineering and head of the HCI Engineering Group at MIT CSAIL. She is a Forbes 30 under 30 in 'Science' and has received several Best Paper and Honorable Mention Awards at ACM CHI conferences for her work on personal fabrication. She is a Co-Founder and General Co-Chair of the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Computational Fabrication and the ACM SIGCHI Summer School on Computational Fabrication and Smart Matter. Stefanie has given more than 50 invited talks as an invited speaker at universities and research labs, such as MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, CMU, Cornell, ETH, Microsoft Research, Disney Research, and Adobe Research.

Stefanie will discuss why personal fabrication and 3D printing is such a hype right now and will provide an answer to the question if it is here to stick. She draws parallels to personal computing history, analyzing developments in processing speed, device form factors, data transfer, and interaction models. Her research projects showcase fabrication systems moving toward a future where everyone can design and fabricate their own objects.

October 9, 2018

Robots generally excel at specific tasks in structured environments, but lack the versatility and adaptability required to interact-with and locomote-within the natural world. To increase versatility in robot design, my research group is developing robotic skins that can wrap around arbitrary deformable objects to induce the desired motions and deformations. Robotic skins integrate actuation and sensing into a single conformable material, and may be applied-to, removed-from, and transferred-between different objects to create a multitude of controllable robots with different functions to accommodate the demands of different environments. We have shown that attaching the same robotic skin to a deformable object in different ways, or to different objects, leads to unique motions. Further, we have shown that combining multiple robotic skins enables complex motions and functions. During this talk, I will demonstrate the versatility of this soft robot design approach by showing robotic skins in a wide range of applications – including manipulation tasks, locomotion, and wearables – using the same 2D robotic skins reconfigured on the surface of various 3D soft, inanimate objects.

Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Yale University. She completed her B.S. at the Johns Hopkins University, M.S. at U.C. Berkeley, and Ph.D. at Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at Yale, she was an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University for four years. She currently serves as an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Robotics and AI: Soft Robotics, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, and IOPscience Multifunctional Materials. She is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the NASA Early Career Faculty Award, the AFOSR Young Investigator Award, the ONR Young Investigator Award, and was named to Forbes' 2015 30 under 30 list.

May 22, 2018

How can we harness the precision of machines for the creativity of individuals? Digital fabrication tools promise quality production in low volume and are now accessible in maker spaces worldwide. However, the maker context is very different from the historical industrial settings in which digital fabrication was developed. Yet these differences have not led to many changes in contemporary tools. I argue that personal fabrication requires a rethinking of production infrastructure, and in this talk outline a research roadmap for machine agency.

Nadya Peek develops unconventional digital fabrication tools, small scale automation, networked controls, and advanced manufacturing systems. Spanning electronics, firmware, software, and mechanics, her research focuses on harnessing the precision of machines for the creativity of individuals. Nadya is an assistant professor at the University of Washington in the Human-Centered Design and Engineering department where she directs the Machine Agency. She is VP of the Open Source Hardware Association, half of the design studio James and the Giant Peek, and plays drum machines and synths in the band Construction. She completed her PhD on "Making Machines that Make" at MIT in 2016, advised by Neil Gershenfeld.

April 25, 2018

You ignore design at your peril. That's what Steve Vassallo, general partner at Foundation Capital, believes. He'll explain how, in recent years, the very concept of design has evolved and why it's become indispensable to modern businesses. Drawing from his years as an IDEO product designer, entrepreneur, and startup investor, Vassallo also shares advice on how to go from a designer to a designer founder and how to build design-led organizations. For those who want to use the power of design to create positive change, Vassallo lights the way.

Foundation Capital: https://foundationcapital.com/

November 7, 2017

Amos Winter is the Ratan N. Tata Career Development Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. His research focuses on machine and product design for developing and emerging markets. Prof. Winter earned a BS from Tufts University (2003) and an MS (2005) and PhD (2011) from MIT, all in mechanical engineering. He received the 2010 Tufts University Young Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, the 2012 ASME/Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal, was named one of the MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35 (TR35) for 2013, and received the MIT Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award and an NSF CAREER award in 2017. Prof. Winter is also the principal inventor of the Leveraged Freedom Chair (LFC) developing world wheelchair, which was a winner of a 2010 R&D 100 award, was named one of the Wall Street Journal's top innovations in 2011, received a Patents for Humanity award from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2015, and was the subject of 'Engineering Reverse Innovations', winner of the 2015 McKinsey Award for the best article of the year in Harvard Business Review.

This presentation will demonstrate how the Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Lab at MIT characterizes the unique technical and socioeconomic constraints of emerging markets, then uses these insights with engineering science and product design to create high-performance, low-cost, globally-relevant technologies. The talk will focus on three areas of GEAR Lab's research: high-performance, low-cost prosthetic feet; low-pressure, low-power drip irrigation, and solar-powered desalination. We have created a novel method of connecting the mechanical design of a foot to its biomechanical performance, which allows the stiffness and geometry to be optimized to induce able-bodied walking kinematics and kinetics. This theory has resulted in a single-part foot architecture that can be made of nylon to hit a $10 price point for developing countries, and which will be ruggedized and customizable for the US military/veteran population. By characterizing the coupled fluid/solid mechanics within drip irrigation emitters, we have designed new drippers that operate at 1/7th the pressure of existing products. This technology can cut the overall pressure, pumping power, and energy usage of drip irrigation systems by approximately 50%, and lower the capital cost of off-grid systems by up to 40%. GEAR Lab elucidated a disruptive market opportunity in arid countries for photovoltaic-powered electrodialysis (PV-ED) desalination, which requires half the energy and reduces water wastage from 60% to <10% compared to reverse osmosis. These market insights have led to new ED architectures which substantially reduce capital cost, as well as co-optimized PV and ED systems that are 40% less expensive than current technology. The three projects that will be presented demonstrate how rigorous engineering theory combined with insights on emerging market constraints can yield high-value solutions relevant to poor and rich countries alike.

April 20, 2017

Tobin is a kiteboarder and climber, in addition to being a Stanford trained engineer. He wanted to see flying cameras reach the same ease of use and polish as the products he helped create at IDEO. After being cut badly by an innocuous plastic bladed quadrotor, he also realized the massive safety risk from flying cameras. His real world experience adventuring and designing products are the basis for many of Vantage Robotics' design innovations.

On April 20th, 2017, Tobin joined us at Stanford for a talk on not only about his robots, but his experiences as an entrepreneur after graduating from the Stanford Design Program.

Vantage Robotics: https://vantagerobotics.com/

April 16, 2015

Carl Bass is a former president and chief executive officer of Autodesk, Inc., a maker of professional 3D design software and consumer applications, and was a co-founder of Ithaca Software, which commercialized HOOPS, a 3D graphics system. Bass has been credited with expanding Autodesk beyond its core AutoCAD software through acquisitions and new product developments and transitioning from 2D to 3D model-based design.

October 6, 2014

A Conversation with Susan Szenasy. This is a series of national conversations exploring issues of design advocacy and ethics while celebrating Szenasy, Design Advocate a new title published by Metropolis Books. Whenever there has been some new ground that is covered in design Susan and Metropolis have frequently led the way in their reporting. Back in 2002, when design was starting to be embraced in every aspect of healthcare –from devices to the design of the emergency room–Susan chose to do a cover story on the topic. In addition, Susan has always had a great love for students and being a true champion for the student voice in design.

February 28, 2013

Artist Nemo Gould (A.K.A. "nemomatic") is a compulsive collector of things, and builder of all sorts. All of his work is made from found materials which he gathers from around his Oakland, CA studio. These Assemblage works can be described as "Kinetic Sculpture" or "Automata". These terms refer to art which incorporates motion, light, sound, and interactivity with the viewer. Recurring themes of robots, creatures, and vehicles reveal the artist's love of science fiction, mechanical design, and the generally bizarre.

nemogould.com: http://www.nemogould.com/

April 12, 2012

We just found out that Philip will be on campus next week and have partnered with the Stanford Center for Image Systems Engineering to set up a talk! Philip brings 20 years of experience in the fashion industry to his specialist field of research, which is in the convergence of fashion design and technology, regularly collaborating with international experts in the fields of human, material and computer sciences to develop new approaches to design thinking and practice. He has worked with 3D printing for a decade in the field of fashion and mass customization. He has recently exhibited work in Milan, London, Hong Kong and Stockholm and is a regular commentator and author, most recently published in "High Heels: Fashion, Femininity & Seduction" pub. Thames & Hudson, on the creative use of 3D Printing in fashion footwear.

This talk describes the uptake of 3D Rapid Prototyping technology into the fashion industries and presents case studies in fashion and sports footwear using components which have been laser sintered in Titanium and Polyamide. Increasing uptake of digital manufacturing into industry, combined with improved build speed, finish and size has allowed for greater flexibility in production of low volume, customized and bespoke products. The presentation also describes the innovation potential for these technologies to cross domains, and suggests that their creative exploration by designers may be the key to developing new market opportunities.

April 6, 2012

Pete Nelson is the co-founder of The Treehouse Workshop in Seattle, Washington. Pete designed his first treehouse while in high school and though it was never built, the foundations were laid for his future work.

Pete established The Treehouse Workshop in 1997 and has designed and built treehouses all over the United States as well as in Japan, Spain, and Morocco. His creations range from small structures that serve as play spaces for kids to full-scale homes and educational facilities. Each treehouse is a unique structure that must fit the living trees that support it and leave room for them to move and grow.

Pete is also an active educator and evangelist for treehouses. The Treehouse Workshop provides specialty hardware and offers courses in treehouse design and construction. In addition, Pete has written five books on treehouses, treehouse construction, and treehouse living.

Michael Sturtz is a sculptor, fabricator, educator, fire ballet director, and the designer (and rider) of the world's fastest biodiesel motorcycle.

Michael defies labels and conventions with a body of creative work that is wide-ranging and continually evolving. In directing and producing over a half dozen fire ballets and operas, he has brought the excitement and power of the industrial arts from the studio onto the stage. He plays with similar juxtapositions in his design and sculptural work, bringing together the biological and the mechanical in a delicate, yet dynamic dance.

Michael lead a team named the Diesel Dozen, which designed and build the world's first biodiesel land speed motorcycle. Michael rode the bike to a 100% bio-fueled land speed record of over 130mph. In addition to his professional and artistic successes, Michael is a passionate educator. As founder and former Executive Director of The Crucible in Oakland, CA. During his 12 years there, he created a unique educational setting which serves over 8000 students annually and offers classes in subjects ranging from welding and blacksmithing to ceramics and glass.

More information on his work can be found at michaelsturtz.com.

January 27, 2011

As a Partner and Creative Director at IDEO, Jane plays a global leadership role, evolving content and craft, human insight, and design thinking in support of client projects worldwide. She came to design from psychology and architecture with the ambition to integrate social science-based perspectives into design practice — and to foster a collaborative community of kindred spirits.

Jane is the author of Thoughtless Acts: Observations on Intuitive Design (Chronicle Books, 2005), a book of snapshots that depict the subtle and amusing ways in which people interact with the world. Jane believes that design, like life, is about seeking creative harmonies with elements of our world.

December 21, 2010

We are delighted to welcome architecture and design visionary Neri Oxman as our first speaker in this season's David H. Liu Memorial Lecture Series in Design at Stanford.

Featured in Fast Company's Top 100 Most Creative People in 2010, Neri is an architect, Assistant Professor of Media, Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab, and newly-appointed Director of the Mediated Matter Group.

Join us as Neri discusses her pioneering work at the technological forefront of design and explores the material intersection between architecture, engineering, computation, and ecology. Inspired by nature, her research seeks to integrate morphology, behavior, material and structure by combining computational form-finding strategies with biologically inspired fabrication technologies.

December 21, 2010

Founded by Jeanne Gang in 1997 and based in Chicago, Studio Gang is a collective of architects, designers, and thinkers producing transformative architecture. The studio's approach is grounded in compelling ideas rather than repetitive formal principles and functions as a lab for testing ideas on varying scales: from cities to environments to individual buildings' unique material properties.

The practice employs an open and collaborative approach that enables clients to participate in the design process, making choices as the project develops. Notable projects include the Aqua Tower (named 2009 International Skyscraper of the Year), SOS Children's Village Community Center, Brick Weave House, and Lincoln Park Zoo South Pond. The firm's work has been published and exhibited widely, including at the Venice Biennale, National Building Museum, and Art Institute of Chicago.

May 3, 2010

In a change of format, this Spring's Liu Lecture will feature a panel discussion that brings together the founders of some of the most innovative design firms and initiatives in the world.

The moderator, Dr. Barry Katz, would guide discussion around "What objects have the moral right to enter the 21st century?" The lecture was free and open to the public.

Gadi Amit (NewDealDesign): Gadi Amit is the principal designer and founder of NewDealDesign. Gadi runs NewDeal hands-on, with great attention to the project strategy and goals, down to the finest details. His work has been featured in design publications and museums including Cooper Hewitt and San Francisco MOMA. Prior to founding NewDeal, he was Vice President of Design at frogdesign for nearly seven years, with experience in consumer electronics, mobile computing, household goods, and medical technology.

Robbert Brunner (Ammunition): After graduating from San Jose State University in 1981, Brunner co-founded design consultancy Lunar. He served as Director of Industrial Design at Apple Computer for 7 years, then became partner at Pentagram in 1996. In 2006, he launched Fuego, an outdoor grilling company, and founded Ammunition in 2007. He co-authored "Do you matter? How great design will make people love your company" and teaches advanced product design at Stanford University.

Valerie Casey (The Designers Accord): Valerie Casey is a globally recognized designer and innovator who consults with startups, governments, and organizations. She held executive positions at IDEO, frog design, and Pentagram. She has been named "Guru you should know" by Fortune magazine and "Hero of the Environment" by Time magazine. Casey founded The Designers Accord, focused on creating positive social and environmental impact. She holds a master's degree from Yale University and a BA from Swarthmore College.

Dan Harden (Whipsaw): Dan is Principal and chief designer of Whipsaw Inc. With 27 years of experience, he has designed hundreds of products and won over 100 design awards including Red Dot and IDEA awards. He holds over 150 patents. His work appears in major publications and museums including the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. Prior to founding Whipsaw in 1999, he was President of frogdesign. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1982.

Dr. Barry Katz (Moderator): Barry Katz was educated at McGill University in Montréal, the London School of Economics, and holds a doctorate from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is a consulting professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University and fellow at IDEO. His books include "Change By Design" with Tim Brown and "Tectonic Shift: The Unstable History of Silicon Valley Design," forthcoming from MIT Press.

November 18, 2009

Ben Fry is director of Seed Visualization and its Phyllotaxis Lab, a design laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts focused on understanding complex data.

He holds a doctorate from MIT Media Laboratory's Aesthetics + Computation Group, where he researched combining computer science, statistics, graphic design, and data visualization. Following his PhD, Fry worked as a postdoc with Eric Lander at the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard on genetic data visualization tools.

Fry served as the Nierenberg Chair of Design at Carnegie Mellon's School of Design during 2006-2007 and published "Visualizing Data" for O'Reilly in 2007.

With UCLA's Casey Reas, he co-created Processing, an open-source programming environment that won the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in 2005 and appeared in the 2006 Cooper-Hewitt Design Triennial. Processing 1.0 was released in November 2008, and is used by tens of thousands of people every week.

His work has exhibited at the Whitney Biennial (2002), Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial (2003), and Museum of Modern Art. His information graphics appear in Nature, The New York Times, and other publications.

Named one of the top 50 most creative people in Business (Fast Company,) Genevieve Bell is an Intel Fellow and director of the User Experience Group within the Intel Digital Home Group.

Bell joined Intel in 1998 and has come to lead an R&D team of social scientists, interaction designers and human factors engineers to drive human-centric product innovation in Intel's consumer electronics business. In this role she is responsible for setting research directions, conducting comparative qualitative and quantitative research globally, leading new product strategy and definition, and championing consumer-centric innovation and thinking across the company.

Prior to joining Intel, Bell was a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University. She has written more than 25 journal articles and book chapters on a range of subjects focused on the intersection of technology and society. Her book, "Telling Techno-Cultural Tales," co-authored with Prof. Paul Dourish, is being published by MIT Press.

Raised in Australia, Bell received her bachelor's degree in anthropology from Bryn Mawr College in 1990. She received her master's and doctorate degrees in anthropology from Stanford University in 1993 and 1998, respectively.

November 3, 2009

Maira Kalman's inspired illustrations have become widely known and loved through the myriad extensions of her storytelling talent. Her work has appeared on New Yorker covers, including a notable piece called "New Yorkistan" depicting NYC boroughs with cultural descriptors. She has contributed illustrated columns to the New York Times, including "And the Pursuit of Happiness" and "Principles of Uncertainty" (published as a book). She authored 12 children's books and created an illustrated version of Strunk and White's "Elements of Style." With her late husband Tibur Kalman, she co-founded M&Co, designing watches, clocks, and accessories distributed by MoMA. She teaches graduate Design at the School of Visual Arts and co-founded the Rubber Band Society.

October 29, 2009

Jacqueline Novogratz is founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture fund that works to solve the problems of global poverty by delivering affordable, critical goods and services – like health, housing and water – to the poor.

Prior roles include founding and directing The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership program at the Rockefeller Foundation, and founding Duterimbere, a micro-finance institution in Rwanda. She began her career in international banking with Chase Manhattan Bank.

She serves on advisory boards of Stanford Graduate School of Business and Innovations Journal (MIT Press). She holds fellow status at the Aspen Institute and Synergos Institute, and has spoken at major conferences including the World Economic Forum, Clinton Global Initiative, and TED. Educational background: MBA from Stanford, BA in Economics/International Relations from University of Virginia.

May 21, 2009

Wipperfürth is a partner at Dial House in San Francisco. He is the author of Brand Hijack, and the upcoming The Co-Creation Myth and The Fringe Manifesto. The firm functions as both a think tank and creative consultancy, serving clients ranging from fringe (Napster, Doc Martens, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Jones Soda, Red Stripe, Altoids) to cutting edge (Current TV, New Yorker Magazine) to blue chip (Diageo, IBM, P&G/Clorox, Toyota, Coca-Cola). His earlier research examined cult members and consumer enthusiasts, discovering fascinating insights about their similarities.

May 4, 2009

We're honored to present Dr. Jon Cagan as the next speaker in the Liu Lecture Series! Dr. Cagan is the director of Carnegie Mellon University's graduate program in Product Development and a distinguished professor in the department of Mechanical Engineering. Cagan has written two fantastic books on the topic of product development: Creating Breakthrough Products and The Design of Things to Come. Both books skillfully navigate the arc from the fuzzy front end of product development all the way up to program approval. The texts also bridge the chasm between qualitative and quantitative values in a way that is actually understandable. His Liu Lecture will be about the emerging research in the creative Design process and the role of emotion in product usage. Emerging research is uncovering the cognitive basis of creative design and the emotional basis of product usage. This talk will present studies in both of these areas. From the perspective of how designers create innovative solutions, we will look at a series of cognitive studies that uncover how designers utilize both useful and misleading information while carrying open goals of unsolved design problems. From the perspective of the person using the product, emotion plays a critical role. We will examine new methods to capture aesthetic preferences and agent-based computational tools that use those preferences to guide generation of preferred design forms.

April 12, 2009

Andy Spade will be speaking on Wednesday, April 15th. Spade had over a decade of experience with top advertising agencies Saatchi & Saatchi, Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, and TBWA/Chiat/Day managing accounts with companies such as Coca Cola, Evian, Reebok, Lexus, and Coach. He's the branding and marketing man behind Kate Spade and Jack Spade (the companies that he and his wife created.) He has also been tapped to design the experiences of a number of companies including Delta's Song Airlines and J. Crew retail experiment The Liquor Store. Spade's latest project is Partners & Spade. It includes a highly conceptual retail experience in downtown Manhattan. Beyond all these business ventures, Spade is heavily involved in the art world. He is a patron to emerging artists, co-owner of a gallery, and curator of several exhibitions. Spade's projects merge emotional branding, experience design, brilliant collaboration, and always a touch of surrealism.

March 15, 2009

Curator of Design at MoMA NY.

March 15, 2009

March 15, 2009

Kennedy & Violich Architecture: http://www.kvarch.net/

March 15, 2009

International Fashion Machines

March 15, 2009

Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

March 15, 2009

March 15, 2009

March 15, 2009

March 15, 2009

March 15, 2009

March 15, 2009

Artist

March 15, 2009

March 15, 2009

Executive Director of Foundation for the Long Now.

October 23, 2008

Robin Chase is the co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, an innovative car sharing service, and is currently the CEO of GoLoco.org, a venture combining online carpooling and social networking. She is also founder of Meadow Networks, a transportation consulting firm, and maintains a blog Network Musings on the topics of climate change, transportation, and wireless networks.

Chase has been frequently featured in the major media including the Today Show, The New York Times, National Public Radio, Wired, Newsweek and Time magazines, as well as several books on entrepreneurship. She has received many awards, including the Massachusetts Governor's Award for Entrepreneurial Spirit, Start-up Woman of the Year, Business Week's top 10 designers, Fast Company's Fast 50 Champions of Innovation, technology and innovation awards from Fortune, CIO, and InfoWorld magazines, and numerous environmental awards from national, state and local governments and organizations.

Chase graduated from Wellesley College and MIT's Sloan School of Management, and won the competitive Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

October 8, 2008

Rives (rhymes with 'weaves') designs interactive narratives for grown-ups. Part poet, part storyteller, Rives offers audiences uniquely intelligent and creative entertainment—impossible to categorize for a print medium like this bio. He's extraordinarily deft with words, extremely clever, creative, and intellectually alive. His work bursts in multiple directions, makes surprising connections, and leaves you gasping and laughing. For his avid use of technology, he's been called 'the first 2.0 poet,' incorporating images, video, and text, often involving audience members.

Rives is the co-host of Bravo channel's new show Ironic Iconic America, a unique and whimsical tour of contemporary American culture debuting October 3, 2008. He is a regular at the annual TED Conference, where he earns standing ovations. He's appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and on the last four seasons of HBO's Def Poetry Jam. He was the 2004 National Poetry Slam champion.

Rives's clients include Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Hallmark, Wieden +Kennedy, Business Objects, Northwestern University, and the House of Blues.

www.shopliftwindchimes.com: http://www.shopliftwindchimes.com

April 30, 2008

Cofounder and partner of non·object. Entrepreneur and master of the unexpected, Branko is non·object's design experience visionary and author of the soon to be released non·object Design Fiction book.

Prior to non·object, branko was a lead industrial designer at frogdesign and IDEO, where he lead projects for clients such as Nike, Adidas, Samsung, Intel, Motorola, SAP, HP, Pepsi, Starbucks, Ford, Herman Miller and other major international companies.

Branko won his first design contract at the age of 18 back in Belgrade, Serbia. Since then, he has created work in a wide variety of areas, including industrial and product design, branding, sustainable design, graphic communication, digital media, and conceptual design.

Branko holds many patents and has won numerous national and international awards in the field of design and branding including Business Week IDEA Gold Award, Graphis Design Annual Award, International Design magazine Awards, red dot Awards, Good Design Award etc.

Branko earned a B.S. in Industrial Design from the University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia.

March 5, 2008

Stefan Sagmeister is one of the most influential graphic designers in the world working today. Since 1993 Sagmeister Inc., has focused on all things printed, including posters, brochures, books, and graphics and packaging for music clients. Sagmeister's award-winning work has been recognized in national publications such as The New York Times, Time, Rolling Stone, and Wired. He's created iconic album covers for Lou Reed, the Talking Heads, and the Rolling Stones. Born in Austria, he now lives in New York City. His recent publication, "Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far" has received grand acclaim from a wide audience.

November 15, 2007

Rich Silverstein is the Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, an advertising agency in San Francisco. In their twenty-three year history they have been one of the most honored agencies in the world. They were recently named "2006 Agency of the Year" by both AdWeek and Creativity, and Advertising Age selected them for "2006 Digital Agency of the Year" and "2006 Campaign of the Year" for their Hewlett-Packard campaign.

Rich grew up in New York and attended the Parsons School of Design. He began his career as an art director for Rolling Stone magazine and then worked at various advertising agencies before founding his own agency in 1984 with Jeff Goodby. He is a member of both the New York Art Director's and the One Club of New York's Halls of Fame.

In addition, Rich also serves on the boards for the USA Cycling Federation, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and Specialized Bicycles.

October 29, 2007

Sara Beckman is a professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. She is part of the Operations and Information Technology group, studying methods that companies use to reach world class standards in the production and delivery of goods and services.

Her research interests include: Innovation and design management, New product development, Operations strategy, and Environmental supply chain management.

October 18, 2007

Janine Benyus is a natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including her latest − Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. In Biomimicry, she names an emerging discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature's designs and processes (e.g., solar cells that mimic leaves, agriculture that models a prairie, businesses that run like redwood forests). Since the book's 1997 release, Janine has evolved the practice of biomimicry, consulting with sustainable business, academic, and government leaders, serving on the Eco-Dream Team at Interface, Inc., and conducting seminars about what we can learn from the genius that surrounds us. Her favorite role is biologist-at-the-design-table, introducing innovators to organisms whose well-adapted designs have been tested over 3.8 billion years.

September 27, 2007

I currently conduct research for Nokia Design and split my time between running user studies and developing new applications, services and products that, if I do my job right, you'll using 3 to 15 years from now. Prior to this role I worked as Principal Researcher in the Nokia Research Center, Tokyo. I specialize in taking teams of concept/industrial designers, psychologists, usability experts, sociologists, and ethnographers into the field and, after a fair bit of work, getting them home safely. The tough part of the job is in using the data to inform, inspire and affect how my colleagues think and what they do, and in turning research into core intellectual property that underpins the future business. I live and work from Tokyo, my home since 2000.

May 23, 2007

John Maeda is an American executive, designer, technologist. His work explores the area where business, design, and technology merge. He is Global Head, Computational Design and Inclusion at Automattic where he seeks to address the diversity gap in tech by exploring how inclusion can be a key ingredient for success in the technology industry.

April 23, 2007

Vice President of Design Innovation and Strategy at Procter & Gamble.

April 12, 2007

Virginia Inman Postrel (born January 14, 1960) is an American political and cultural writer of broadly libertarian, or classical liberal, views. She is best known for her non-fiction books, The Future and Its Enemies and The Substance of Style. In the former she explains her philosophy, "dynamism", a forward-looking and change-seeking philosophy that generally favors unregulated organization through "spontaneous order". She contrasts it with "stasis", a philosophy that favors top-down control and regulation and is marked by desire to maintain the present state of affairs. In November 2013, she published a third book, The Power of Glamour, which defined glamour as "nonverbal rhetoric" that "leads us to feel that the life we dream of exists, and to desire it even more."

May 27, 2004

Founder Survival Research Labs. Mark closed by firing a railgun mounted in the back of a pickup truck at the library – he was banned from campus in the 90's – we were glad to have him back.

May 20, 2004

Founder Whirlwind Wheelchairs International.

May 15, 2004

Founder of Patagonia

May 13, 2004

Founder of Good Vibrations

April 8, 2004

Founder, KickStart

May 21, 2003

Lot/Ek Architecture

www.lot-ek.com: http://www.lot-ek.com

May 14, 2003

South Park Fabricators/Sand Studios

www.sandstudios.com: http://www.sandstudios.com

May 7, 2003

Blu Dot

www.bludot.com: http://www.bludot.com

April 23, 2003

Burley Design Cooperative

www.burley.com: http://www.burley.com

April 14, 2003

www.onetrees.org

April 9, 2003

Post Tool Design

www.posttool.com: http://www.posttool.com

December 6, 2001

the design of experience

November 29, 2001

learning culture: reverb in the expanded field

www.reverbstudio.com: http://www.reverbstudio.com

November 15, 2001

books, bookshelves, and design

www-cee.egr.duke.edu: http://www-cee.egr.duke.edu

November 8, 2001

"object culture" www.karimrashid.com

November 1, 2001

"unfolding the structure"

October 25, 2001

"the chair: rethinking culture, body, and design" arch.ced.berkeley.edu

October 18, 2001

"in search of a future for design"

www.ideo.com

October 11, 2001

workshop: "brand as a design tool

October 4, 2001

product design revisited

November 6, 1999

November 6, 1998

November 6, 1997

The first David H. Liu Memorial Lecture took place on November 6th, 1997. Niels Diffrient was the first guest to speak.