Category: Biography

Irene Au has a math and science background and she built robots when she was in college. When attending the electrical and computer engineering graduate program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Irene found her passion for solving problems within technology. Irene created her own program of study in human-computer interaction (HCI), and at that…

“I always believe that humans cannot completely get rid of issues such as violence and discrimination. I believe that humans are born with defects in some aspects… But I also believe that one day in the future, we need to look back at these defects and show them to everyone…”–Yoko Taro Yoko Taro was born…

Norma Merick Sklarek, known as “The Rosa Parks of Architecture” was born in Harlem, New York City in 1926. She was the first African American woman to become an architect, and overcame numerous challenges in her career. From her early life, she attended predominantly white schools, where she had demonstrated great strength in math, science,…

After decades of rapid development, the design industry has a set of a relatively mature system. However, this system is largely influenced by European style and aesthetics, which is called Euro-centered. This would definitely cause many problems in the face of globalization in the 21st century. Therefore, in the field of contemporary design, a group…

Krista Donaldson was born in 1973. She is an engineer and currently is a CEO in D-Rev, which is a nonprofit product design and engineering company. Before D-Rev, Krista was an economic officer at the US Department of State where she worked on economic policy and the reconstruction of Iraq’s electricity sector, and as a…

Annie J. Easley was born on April 23rd 1933 in Birmingham, Alabama. She was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist. Annie J. Easley was one of the first African-Americans to work as a computer scientist in NASA. As A computer scientist, Annie J. Easley has contributed to many projects, inspired many people by…

Freddy Allen Anzures is a Filipino American designer who worked on the original design team of the iPhone, the single most influential device of this century. Anzures graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design, 1999. As one of the most prestigious design programs around the U.S., the environment at Carnegie…

Dori Tunstall is a design anthropologist, or someone who studies how design translates values into tangible experiences. After receiving her BA in Anthropology, she obtained a Ph.D. in the subject from Stanford University. She is the first black dean of a faculty of design, and is currently working at Ontario College of Art and Design….

Lola Oyelayo-Pearson is a black woman from the UK who has been working in digital systems for 17 years as a UX and product specialist. She started as a business analyst, before focusing energy into research, design, and development. After gaining her Bachelors of Engineering in Interactive Design Systems from the University of Birmingham, she…

Julian Francis Abele is a famous African American architect. He is also the chief designer of Horace Trumbauer’s office. He has contributed to the design of more than 400 buildings in his life, but the Duke University Chapel is the only building that he claimed authorship. Julian Abele was born in Philadelphia in 1881. His…

Zuzana Licko was born in 1961 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. Licko’s father was a biomathematician and at the University of California, San Francisco. Through his job, she became involved with computers during the summer months, helping him with data processing work. The first font she created was designed in the Greek alphabet for her father. Czechoslovakia…

Maureen Macharia is an accomplished Product Designer, entrepreneur, and community builder who is proficient at the intersection of design thinking, technology, and entrepreneurship. In her work, Macharia combines her analytical skill and human-centered approach to solve problems that identify needs and opportunities for company growth. Macharia develops practical and contextually prominent products or solutions for…

Ha Dong Nguyen is a 35-year-old video game artist and game developer from Vietnam. He graduated as an engineer in Information Technology. Hanoi University of Technology is a prestigious school that taught many Vietnamese talented engineers. However, Nguyen never had a vision as a world-famous game programmer when he grew up in Van Phuc, a…

Sara Finkelstein (née Finkelstein; September 21, 1917 – September 3, 2015) was born in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn. She attended Parsons School of Design on scholarships from the School Art League of NYC and the National Council of Jewish Women, graduating in 1939. She acquired the nickname, “Little Sara,” during school due to her…

In today’s society, many designers are working hard for the underrepresented group, and Catt small is one of the designers that can not be ignored. She is a product/interaction designer and game developer. Catt began to code websites and games at the age of 10. Now she has 20 years of programming and design experience,…

Lynne Yun is a type designer and educator based in New York City. She is famous for her work in typography, hand lettering, and calligraphy. Lynne enjoys the balancing act of form and function that is required when designing tools for communication, from crafting handwritten calligraphic pieces to designing type for the screen. As a…

Lisette Titre-Montgomery is an art director in the Gaming Industry with over 17 years of experience designing games and leading creative teams. She has contributed to 13 titles, including Tiger Woods Golf, The Simpsons, Dante’s Inferno, Dance Central 3, SIMS 4. As a Black woman in a predominantly White, male profession, she certainly understands the…

Arata Isozaki was born on 23 July 1931. He is a Japanese architect and an urban designer from Ōita. He received the RIBA Gold Medal in 1986 and the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2019. During his six-decade career, he has designed more than 100 buildings. Isozaki was born in an upper-class family. He witnessed the devastation of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII when he…

Charlotte Perriand is an artist who wasn’t given her due credit. She was a designer from France born in 1903 who mostly worked on “furniture, scale models, and photographs” (Luckel). She works with wood and metal for the development of these sculptures and pieces, but she has created a sense of genuineness, pragmatism, and aesthetics…

Not many have turned user research around and focused it not on customers, but on the designers themselves who craft the user experience. Vivianne Castillo is one of the first to challenging areas in the User Experience industry. She discovered two large challenge areas; the first being that many designers experience Compassion Fatigue and burnout…