Conley Chris Conley, IDSA, Chair: Chris Conley is co-founder and director of Gravity Tank and Associate Professor and Track Lead of Product Design at the Institute of Design in Chicago. In the early 90's he pioneered the application of user research to inspire design and management teams. At Gravity Tank he leads the development of Integrated DefinitionTM, a way of working that leverages the core competencies of design to enable cross-functional client teams to define new product and service innovations. At the Institute of Design, he has further developed the graduate product design program to prepare professionals to use design in the front-end planning stages of new product and service development.

Chris writes, speaks and conducts workshops on the core competencies of design and their value to the practice of innovation. He has received design awards from Sony, GE, Black & Decker, and Nesté of Finland. Gravity Tank clients include numerous Fortune 500 companies in consumer, commercial, industrial, and retail markets.

Web: www.gravitytank.com
Tor Alden, IDSA: Tor is a principal at HS Design, a full-service product design firm, headquartered in Gladstone, NJ. HS Design is known for its user research, design strategy, and product design solutions in a wide range of markets including industrial, commercial, medical, electronics, and consumer products. HS Design is a recognized leader in the field, producing over 400 successful products since its inception some 35 years ago.

Alden's experience includes 18+ years in product development, design management and strategy, during which he has received more than 30 patents and numerous design awards. His design specialization centers on high technology consumer and medical product design, entrepreneurships and new venture initiatives. Alden is an active participant and speaker in industry and educational associations. He currently serves as co-chair of the IDSA's medical section and also serves on the advisory board of the Department of Design at Kean University. Alden received his Bachelor's in Industrial Design from Syracuse University and a Master of Science in Technology Management from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Web: www.hs-design.com

Rinat Aruh: Rinat Aruh is Vice President of Marketing for Forth & Towne, the latest addition to Gap Inc.'s portfolio of brands. In this role Aruh oversees all aspects of marketing for Forth & Towne, including store experience, brand development and CRM.

Prior to Gap Inc., Aruh held the position of Global Strategy Manager for MINI Lifestyle at BMW Group AG, where she was responsible for brand extensions, and collaborations as well as new business strategies. Aruh also worked on the MINI brand during its US launch at BMW of North America spearheading a number of brand initiatives. Before that, Aruh held various positions at MaxMara USA. Aruh holds a B.S.B.A. in marketing from Boston University in Massachusetts.

Betty Baugh, FIDSA: Betty is a past-president of IDSA and was elected to serve in each of the officer positions on the IDSA Board of Directors over a ten year period. During her term as president, she forged an alliance with the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) for the ICSID Congress to be hosted by IDSA in San Francisco in 2007. She is the founder of the consulting office of Betty Baugh Design, developing products for tabletop, foodservice, consumer electronics and housewares industries.

Currently she holds patents for housewares product and her products have received numerous design awards. Betty served on the Board of Advisors of ID Magazine, is an adjunct professor at California College of Art and San Francisco Academy of Art University.

Richard Eisermann: Richard Eisermann is an internationally acclaimed designer and strategist who recently launched Prospect, a new strategic design practice based in London. For the past three years Richard was the Director of Design and Innovation with Design Council, where he was responsible for design campaigns in manufacturing, technology, learning environments and design skills.

He came to London from Italy, where he had been responsible for Design at Whirlpool Europe for four years. Prior to joining Whirlpool, he worked as a design consultant, leading multi-disciplinary teams at IDEO in Boston from 1995-1999 and working as a senior designer as Sottass Associati in Milan from 1988 - 1994. He and his teams have been recipients of numerous design awards, including The Smithsonian National Design Award, the IDEA, and other design distinctions from iF Hannover, ID magazine and The Austrian Design Council. Web: www.theprospect.net

Alistair Hamilton, IDSA: Alistair is Vice President of Innovation & Design at Symbol Technologies where he develops hand held computers, data capture and RFID solutions targeted at making companies more mobile. His team focuses on customer driven innovation by tightly integrating design research, user experience design, human factors, industrial design, and advanced product engineering throughout product development.

At Symbol and in previous positions at NCR and AT&T, Alistair has been fortunate to work with many great designers and leaders, and shares the recognition for significant accomplishments from prestigious institutions, including IDSA's IDEA. He holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design and an M.A. in Environmental Studies.

John R. Hoke III, IDSA: John Hoke came to Nike in 1992 after graduating at the top of his master's program at the University of Pennsylvania. John's interest in Nike began during his childhood, when in 1976 he submitted sketch ideas to Phil Knight regarding athletic shoes with "air" in the mid-sole. Twenty-three years later, John designed the SHOX XTR, an innovative training shoe with the revolutionary NIKE-SHOX cushioning system. Prior to graduate school, John worked at the multi-disciplinary firm of Michael Graves.

John's work has been highlighted in numerous global design periodicals and news media events.

In August, 2003, John was appointed Vice President, Global Footwear Design at Nike.

David Kusuma, FIDSA: David Kusuma is vice president of product development, leading development teams in Orlando and Belgium for Tupperware Worldwide. Prior, he was Global Manager of Design and Vehicle Engineering at Exatec, an automotive joint venture of GE Plastics and Bayer Material Science. David has made numerous presentations on the application of new materials technologies and has appeared in a number of national and international publications, including past guest editor for Innovation. He has been interviewed on the Discovery, Food, and History Channels, on the subject of innovative new product development at Tupperware. He has served on the executive board of ICSID and as a Juror on the 10th International Design Award, Osaka Competition.
JohnPaul Kusz, IDSA : JohnPaul Kusz is currently affiliated with Illinois Institute of Technology's Stuart Graduate School of Business and its Institute of Design, where he teaches courses related to the environmental aspects of business and product development. He is a founder and Associate Director of Stuart's Center for Sustainable Enterprise. He also leads JPKusz, Ltd., developing strategies aimed at mitigating the negative environmental effects of commerce. His past experience includes directing product design, development and environmental business management groups within corporations in industries ranging from plastics, to medical equipment and resource recovery systems.

JohnPaul has authored over 45 papers and has presented and taught nationally and internationally, speaking on subjects that range from education to environmental problem solving through the design process and organizational change.

Lausen Marcia Lausen, IDSA: Marcia is the founding principal of the Chicago office of Studio/lab and Director of the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Studio/lab is a multidisciplinary design studio providing brand consulting and information design services for leading design-driven organizations. Clients include Mattel, Morningstar, Motorola, Rand McNally, Target, and Whirlpool.

Marcia is an outspoken advocate for the value of design in corporate, consumer, and government communications. She serves on the national board of AIGA and leads the election design initiative of Design for Democracy: a nonprofit organization which seeks to improve the quality and clarity of government communications. Marcia received her MFA in graphic design from Yale University and her BFA in graphic design from Indiana University. She was named a "2004 Fast Company Master of Design."

Web: www.studiolab.com
Carl Magnusson, IDSA: Although born in Sweden, Carl Magnusson grew up in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada. He studied architecture and design at the University of Idaho and at the Chalmers Institute of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. In 1966, he moved to Los Angeles and joined the office of Charles Eames. He later worked as a designer for an architectural office, eventually opening his own studio there. In 1976 Magnusson joined Knoll as Director of Graphics and Showroom Design and was promoted to Director of Design for Europe shortly thereafter. He directly designed Knoll showrooms in London, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Zurich, Florence, Rome, Amsterdam and Turin. Magnusson’s responsibility grew in 1993 when he was named senior vice president, director of design worldwide, then executive vice president, director of design in 2003. After 30 years of service, Carl recently retired from Knoll and founded a design consulting firm, Carl Gustav Magnusson Design.
Jeremy Myerson: Jeremy Myerson is a leading design writer, critic and educator based in London. He is Professor of Design Studies at the Royal College of Art where he heads the InnovationRCA network for business and is co-director of the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre for inclusive design.

Jeremy holds a master's degree from the RCA. From 1986-89, he was founding editor of Design Week, the world's first weekly newsmagazine for designers and their clients.

He is the author of a number of books on design, business and society, including The 21st Century Office, and New Public Architecture. He has curated many exhibitions in Britain. He has consulted internationally with a number of business and government organisations and is a frequent broadcaster on the BBC.

Donald A. Norman, IDSA: Dr. Norman is cofounder of the Nielsen Norman Group, Professor of Computer Science and Psychology at Northwestern University, and Prof. Emeritus of both Cognitive Science and Psychology at the University of California, San Diego. He has been Vice President of Apple Computer and an executive at Hewlett Packard. He was President of the Learning Systems division of UNext, an early, online education company.

Don serves on many advisory boards, such as Chicago's Institute of Design and Encyclopedia Britannica. He is a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America and is fellow of many organizations, including ACM, AAAS, and the Cognitive Science Society. Dr. Norman is the author of fourteen books, available in sixteen languages. Recent books include The Design of Everyday Things, Things That Make Us Smart and The Invisible Computer. His newest book, Emotional Design emphasizes that products must please and delight, not just perform.

Web: www.jnd.org.

Rahman Hosain Rahman: Hosain Rahman is president and co-founder of Aliph where he is responsible for defining strategic business and product direction of the company, while also managing the organization. Hosain completed the relationship with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), which led to the development of Aliph's key technology and has built strategic relationships with leading companies in the wireless industry. In 2004, Hosain worked with the Aliph team to introduce the ground breaking and award-wining Jawbone headset for mobile phones.

Prior to co-founding Aliph, Hosain worked for Applied Materials and for SoundView Financial Group. Hosain completed a B.Sc. in mechanical engineering at Stanford University.

Web: www.aliph.com
John Thackara: John is a symposiarch who designs events, projects, and organizations. He is also the Director of Doors of Perception (Doors), a design futures network with offices in Amsterdam and Bangalore. Founded as a conference in 1993, Doors now connects together a worldwide network of visionary designers, thinkers and grassroots innovators.

Among John's 12 books are Design After Modernism: Beyond the Object (1987), and Lost in Space: A Traveller's tale (1995). His next book, In the Bubble: Designing In A Complex World, will be published by MIT Press (as its lead title) in Spring 2005. He has lectured in more than forty countries.

Web: www.thackara.com.

Waters Robyn Waters: Known as the Trendmaster, Robyn is a national speaker, author, and hired gun visionary for corporate America. She is founder and president of RW Trend, a trend consulting company based in Minneapolis. Robyn challenges her audiences to look at trend 'from the inside out' by focusing their attention on what's important instead of just what's next.

She is the author of The Trendmaster's Guide: Get A Jump on What Your Customer Wants Next, a simple and witty guide to tracking and translating trends into sales and profit. Most recently, Robyn was vice president of trend, design and product development for Target. One of Robyn's core values is the belief that good taste and good design don't have to be expensive.

Denis Weil, IDSA: Denis Weil is Senior Director, Innovation Planning, at the McDonald's Corporation, responsible for orchestrating McDonald's global innovation pipeline and for leading the discovery of new high opportunity areas through development of customer insights and advanced concepts. Prior, he honed his customer experience design skills in product development and brand management positions at Procter &Gamble and in an e-commerce business.

Denis likes to push the boundaries of linking design with business. He is an adjunct professor at the Institute of Design in Chicago teaching classes in service design and his viewpoints about the value of design for strategy development for big companies like McDonald's have been published in ID Magazine.

Aura Oslapas, IDSA: Aura Oslapas is a partner of A+O Design Methods in Palo Alto, CA. A+O uses design methods to help companies reframe and rethink how people engage with their offerings in the broad landscape of customer experience. Previously, Aura was a principal of Stone Yamashita Partners, a strategic vision consultancy, and director of the San Francisco office of IDEO where she developed and led a practice building innovative customer experiences for many Fortune 500 companies.

Previous experiences include both consulting and corporate leadership roles. Additionally, Aura founded and chaired the Industrial Design program at the California College of Arts in San Francisco. She holds an MFA in Design from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA degree in Industrial Design from the Cleveland Institute of Art. She has lectured widely, chaired conferences, and served on the boards of several design organizations. Her work has received numerous awards and has appeared in many books and publications.