Ren DeCherney is CoDesign Collaborative Week’s Emcee. She was born and raised in Juneau, Alaska. She went as far across the country as she could go to get her undergraduate degree at Smith College in Massachusetts, where she got a degree in Art History and French. She was an interior designer in Juneau for several years, working in a commercial firm and then a residential firm before getting a Masters in Interior Architecture from the University of Oregon.

After graduation she worked in Portland as a designer, where she took her firm PVC-free. She was then the Director of Industry Transparency at Source, where she implemented various features to help designers integrate sustainability criteria into their material selection and specification process. She’s quite possibly the only person who loves talking sustainability but doesn’t like being in nature itself.

Maria Villafranca is the Deputy Director at CoDesign Collaborative. She specializes in nonprofit management and has worked at a range of institutions that support creative producers from community-based organizations to large national arts funders. Most recently, she held leadership roles at The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). She has a background as a writer, and believes strongly in the essential nature of cultural storytelling and inclusive design in communities. She has a BA in Art History and English from Rutgers University and an MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College. She currently lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband, two boys, and pug.

Ginger Dhaliwal is a seasoned entrepreneur with 15+ years of successfully working with startups in Asia and North America. She has led the product development from ideation to launch for several disruptive patented technologies in the healthcare, e-commerce, and fashion industries. In addition, Ginger was the founding member of Embedded Wireless, an R & D facility, and was instrumental in growing the company from 1 to 100 engineers with international offices in Malaysia, India, and the US. Currently, Ginger is the Co-Founder and CPO of Upflex, a B2B solution for on-demand workspace. Upflex strives to help businesses become more efficient, agile, and sustainable while giving employees access to a global network of workspaces.

Originally from France, Gabrielle Mérite is an information designer specializing in empathetic data visualizations for truth-seeking, ethically driven organizations. Deeply passionate about social justice and humanity’s responsibility for one another, her work breathes life into numbers so that people can truly feel their importance. After receiving an M.S in Biology and working several years as a scientific journalist, she exchanged words for illustrations, to communicate analytic findings visually, with honesty and compassion. Since then, she has worked with organizations like the United Nations, UNICEF and WeTransfer, to help them uncover truths and share them with intention.

Ren DeCherney is CoDesign Collaborative Week’s Emcee. She was born and raised in Juneau, Alaska. She went as far across the country as she could go to get her undergraduate degree at Smith College in Massachusetts, where she got a degree in Art History and French. She was an interior designer in Juneau for several years, working in a commercial firm and then a residential firm before getting a Masters in Interior Architecture from the University of Oregon.

After graduation she worked in Portland as a designer, where she took her firm PVC-free. She was then the Director of Industry Transparency at Source, where she implemented various features to help designers integrate sustainability criteria into their material selection and specification process. She’s quite possibly the only person who loves talking sustainability but doesn’t like being in nature itself.

Kristen Jeffers was one of the first people to bring the concept of Black urbanism to the internet and social media in 2010 by purchasing and launching The Black Urbanist, which in its 11th year continues to be a resource for Black urbanism at the intersection of feminism and queer/trans life. She is the author of the forthcoming A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future a memoir/manifesto for Black queer feminist urbanism. She is the creator of the K. Jeffers Index for Black Queer Feminist Urbanism, a guide, measure, and data center to assess the thrivance of black queer feminist urbanist people globally and curator of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Book Cannon and School. Finally, under the banner of Kristpattern, she shares her own journey into sustainable fashion and invites others to do the same. A sought-after public speaker, workshop leader, and cultural critic, she makes her home with her partner just outside of Washington, DC, and is a proud and concerned native of Greensboro, North Carolina.

Work can be a source of happiness, joy and fulfillment, and our places are a significant part of this process. Join us for a lively session where we’ll talk about what makes a positive, energizing experience and how to design places and experiences that compel people. Brower and Pollack will share new research and surprising perspectives on work and how it is changing—and how the work experience can be enriched. You’ll leave with a new view of design for places that stimulate us, nurture us—inspiring us to bring our best to our work and the people around us.

Ren DeCherney is CoDesign Collaborative Week’s Emcee. She was born and raised in Juneau, Alaska. She went as far across the country as she could go to get her undergraduate degree at Smith College in Massachusetts, where she got a degree in Art History and French. She was an interior designer in Juneau for several years, working in a commercial firm and then a residential firm before getting a Masters in Interior Architecture from the University of Oregon.

After graduation she worked in Portland as a designer, where she took her firm PVC-free. She was then the Director of Industry Transparency at Source, where she implemented various features to help designers integrate sustainability criteria into their material selection and specification process. She’s quite possibly the only person who loves talking sustainability but doesn’t like being in nature itself.

Maria Villafranca is the Deputy Director at CoDesign Collaborative. She specializes in nonprofit management and has worked at a range of institutions that support creative producers from community-based organizations to large national arts funders. Most recently, she held leadership roles at The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). She has a background as a writer, and believes strongly in the essential nature of cultural storytelling and inclusive design in communities. She has a BA in Art History and English from Rutgers University and an MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College. She currently lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband, two boys, and pug.

Steve Hoffman (Captain Hoff) is the Chairman & CEO of Founders Space, a global innovation hub for entrepreneurs, corporations, and investors, with over 50 partners in 22 countries. He also a venture investor, founder of three venture-backed and two bootstrapped startups, and author of several award-winning books. These include “Make Elephants Fly” (Hachette), “Surviving a Startup” (HarperCollins), and “The Five Forces” (BenBella). He has trained hundreds of startup founders and corporate executives in the art of innovation and provided consulting to many of the world’s largest corporations, including Qualcomm, Huawei, Bosch, Intel, Disney, Warner Brothers, NBC, Gulf Oil, Siemens, and Viacom. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of California and a master’s degree in film and television from the University of Southern California. He currently resides in California but spends most of his time in the air, visiting startups, investors, and innovators all over the world.

Kate Tooke is a landscape architect at Sasaki. Her project leadership, strategic thinking, design eye, and technical skills have been instrumental in the success of diverse projects ranging from master planning to site-scale work. As a naturally interdisciplinary thinker, she excels at collaborating across disciplines to craft elegant, contextual solutions to complex design challenges. Prior to discovering landscape architecture, Kate was a high school math and physics teacher in the Boston Public School system. Kate holds a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Massachusetts, a master’s degree in education from Lesley University, and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Dartmouth College. She earned the 2011 National Olmsted Scholar award, the highest honor of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF), for her work on urban schoolyards, and has since served on LAF’s board of directors. Kate remains active in the academic world through teaching appointments at the Rhode Island School of Design and University of Massachusetts Amherst as well as through volunteer work with local public schools.

Led by ThoughtMatter Managing Partner Jessie McGuire, this discussion will question the current state of education and challenge the responsibility of designers, professionals, and parents. She will be joined by Founder and Executive Director of Art and Resistance Through Education (ARTE) Marissa Gutierrez-Vicario,  and Assistant Professor at Rhode Island School of Design Ramon Tejada. They will explore civic responsibility and designers’ essential role in preparing the next generation. While breaking free from the status quo takes courage, they will discuss how engaging our curiosity and critical thinking is needed to reinvent ourselves for the future.