Conference

Saurabh Tewari: PhD Scholar and Assistant Professor at School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India is conducting research on Design History in India. He teaches Design, Graphics and Modern Architecture to undergraduate students. He is trained as an Architect (Sushant School, Gurgaon) and as a Communication Designer (IDC IIT Bombay). His interests lie in cities and its people. Two of his most current study areas are transforming cities of Gurgaon and Lucknow. He is also interested in music, politics and Indian culture.

Kelly Hutzell is an Associate Teaching Professor of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. For five years, she has held a joint appointment between the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Doha, Qatar, campuses teaching urban design studios and seminars, including the “Urban Laboratory,” “Urban Design Methods” and “Mapping Urbanism.” Her urban research has recently been published in the book Al Manakh: Gulf Continued and includes the project 4dDoha, an interactive installation documenting the urban growth and transformation of Doha, Qatar, both of which are co-authored with School of Architecture colleague Rami el Samahy. In addition to teaching and conducting research, Kelly is a licensed architect in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is a senior associate at the multi-disciplinary Boston-based practice over,under. Kelly received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Roger Williams University, and a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design degree from Columbia University.

Rami el Samahy is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds a joint appointment between the Carnegie Mellon campuses in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Doha, Qatar, teaching architecture and urban design studios and seminars. He is also a founding partner of over,under, a multi-disciplinary studio (graphic identity, exhibition design, interior design, architecture and urban design) with projects in the Middle East, Central America and the United States.

Spencer Gregson was a Research Associate at Carnegie Mellon University and has participated in research projects in Boston, Massachusetts and Doha, Qatar. He received a Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University.

Saurabh Tewari: PhD Scholar and Assistant Professor at School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India is conducting research on Design History in India. He teaches Design, Graphics and Modern Architecture to undergraduate students. He is trained as an Architect (Sushant School, Gurgaon) and as a Communication Designer (IDC IIT Bombay). His interests lie in cities and its people. Two of his most current study areas are transforming cities of Gurgaon and Lucknow. He is also interested in music, politics and Indian culture.

Kristina Ricco served as Research Associate at Carnegie Mellon University for over two years and has participated in research projects on campuses in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Doha, Qatar. Her research has focused largely on the urban growth and transformation of these cities, and she had a lead role in the Ecologies of Scale exhibit and the forthcoming Scenes and Speculations project. In addition to research, Kristina has been a designer at over,under in Boston. She received a Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University in 2009, and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design degree at Columbia University.

William Andersen is an Assistant Professor of Art at the American University of Kuwait. Andersen received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Fulbright Fellowship to continue his research in Taiwan and China before moving to Kuwait in 2008. His artwork and point of view has primarily been influenced by his travels between the US and Asia over the last eighteen years. During this time, he has watched as regions like the Middle East and Eastern Asia have emerged as economic and cultural forces, and is fascinated by the tightening global web of economics, resource use, migration, and cultural hybridization. Because of this, the notions of globalization and hybridity are the central focus of his current artistic practice. Using a hybrid of traditional and new media approaches, his artwork often incorporates chinoiserie imagery, an interest acquired early on amid his mother’s collection of blue and white china.

Marian St. Laurent is a leading specialist in commercial semiotics with a reputation for conceptual and experiential innovation on projects ranging from retail design, to flavor innovation to television programming development. After completing a degree in art history and cultural theory at Sarah Lawrence College, she began commercially applying her knowledge of semiotics and media theory as a consultant to advertising, branding and innovation firms in New York and London. She is experienced in leading global analysis and has led semiotic offerings and training workshops for commercial and academic institutions in the US, UK, Europe and Turkey since 2009. She is distinguished by her ability to track and deeply understand emergent shifts in visual culture and mass media. She is a recipient of prestigious grants and residencies for her creative work in film and writing since 2001.

Denielle Emans serves as an Assistant Professor in the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises at Zayed University (Dubai, UAE) teaching in the specialized area of Graphic Design as it relates to the conceptualization, development, and execution of visual messages. She utilizes both traditional and digital methods of message making, including specialized subjects such as typography, packaging, web design, and motion graphics. Denielle graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill with a BA in Communications (Media Studies) and received a Masters in Graphic Design from North Carolina State University, School of Design. Denielle maintains a professional design studio in the United States working from concept to production on print and web design projects, for clients ranging from small start-ups to large corporations. Her research interests revolve around design strategies that can increase communication between cultures, aid in language conservation efforts, and serve as a tool towards social good.

Adina Hempel is an Architect and Urban Designer, her work focuses on public space, sustainable urban development and the integration of stakeholders in the design process. She has received a Dipl.-Ing Arch / Master of Architecture from the Technical University of Dresden/Germany, studied at Columbia University New York, New York Film Academy and American University of Sharjah. After having worked in architectural offices in Germany, Switzerland and the UAE, she now runs a multidisciplinary design practice studioHEMPEL and currently serves as Assistant Professor in the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises at the Zayed University in Dubai, UAE. Since moving to Dubai in 2008, Adina has focused on research related to urban cultures in the Middle East and the hybrid role of interior space as public space. In 2011 she co-founded the interdisciplinary community based design association tasmena.e.V., which runs a multiyear program fostering sustainable urban development in the region.

Dr Clare Melhuish is Research Associate on the research project ‘Architectural Atmospheres: the impact of digital visualizing technologies on contemporary architectural practice’, which is funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, and runs from 2011-2013. She is a social anthropologist specializing in the study of modern and contemporary architecture and built environments, who also has a background in architectural criticism. The research project is based in Geography at The Open University in the UK, under the directorship of Professor Gillian Rose, an acclaimed scholar in visual studies, with a particular interest in the uses of visualizing technologies. It is run in partnership with Brunel University, where Co-Investigator Dr. Monica Degen is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology, specializing in urban design and urban regeneration.

Monica Degen (Brunel University, UK)

Gillian Rose (The Open University, UK)

Linda Selwood Choueiri has been teaching Design in higher education in Lebanon for 20 years, having graduated from Denmark’s Design School, Parsons School of Design/Bank Street College of Education, US. Linda is currently Assistant Professor at Notre Dame University Louaize. Her research interests include the Design process, Right/Left brain thinking, and critical and creative Thinking. Currently she is studying Mindfulness and the possibilities it offers pertaining to Design and Education, resulting in a new concept for understanding, teaching and categorizing design called “Design & Mindfulness”. In her teaching she believes in the power of processes; it is no longer sufficient to teach ‘knowledge’, which is ever-changing and increasing, but rather processes that can function regardless of changing ‘truths’. In 2006, she was instrumental in developing and opening the first B.A. in Fashion Design in Lebanon, at Notre Dame-Louiaze University. She hopes to see the development of more contemporary design degrees in Lebanon.

Simon Mhanna is an Educator, Communication Designer & Consultant as well as research savvy. With the unfailing vision in mind that design is multidisciplinary, he obtained an MA in Media Studies with an emphasis on Advertising and an MSc in International Project Management with an emphasis on Branding, after completing a BA in Design. His hybrid background allowed him to teach various design and communication courses at universities both in Lebanon and most recently in Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. Simon also worked for local and regional companies and clients in the communication and branding field. He has a particular interest in researching cultural identities, social behaviors and visual manifestations, creative processes, design thinking, social design, media & attention economy, among other topics. He has published and presented his personal and collaborative research in several national and international conferences and he has a vast experience at conducting workshops and moderating creative talks.

Jorge Silva-Jetter is an MFA candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University. His research examines the intersections between technology and design, and the new horizons created by their mutual cross-pollination. He is interested in data visualization, generative design and the convergence of programming and graphic design. He received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Puerto Rico - Río Piedras.

Paolo Cardini is currently an Assistant Professor in the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, and he is a lecturer in various universities and conferences around the world. He is a founding member of Design Gang Network, a design studio based in Italy that has a wide range of foci from strategic and product design, to graphics and integrated communication. He has designs for different national and international firms including Pininfarina, Motorola, Ferrero, Fiat, LG, and Martini&Rossi. He studied industrial design at Politecnico di Milano and Glasgow school of art. In his academic career he coordinates the Industrial Design Master and Bachelor degrees at IED-Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin. He has also been a strategic design consultant for administrations and Public Institutions.

Dr. Robert Bianchi is an English language and linguistics specialist who teaches undergraduate courses in Writing, Rhetoric, Research, and Literature at VCUQatar. His primary research interests are bilingualism and code-switching, language and identity, biliteracy, and corpus-based discourse analysis. Robert’s educational background includes a BA, a Certificate to Teach English Language to Adults (CELTA), an MA, and a PhD in the fields of linguistics and language teaching. Robert has taught English and French to K-12 students in Canada and Japan, and has taught English to postsecondary students in Oman, the UAE, and Qatar. Robert served for almost five years as a Faculty Developer (EFL) at the College of the North Atlantic-Qatar, occupying the position of Teaching & Learning Centre Coordinator before joining VCUQatar in January 2011.

Rami el Samahy is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds a joint appointment between the Carnegie Mellon campuses in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Doha, Qatar, teaching architecture and urban design studios and seminars. He is also a founding partner of over,under, a multi-disciplinary studio (graphic identity, exhibition design, interior design, architecture and urban design) with projects in the Middle East, Central America and the United States.

Kristina Ricco served as Research Associate at Carnegie Mellon University for over two years and has participated in research projects on campuses in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Doha, Qatar. Her research has focused largely on the urban growth and the transformation of these cities, and she had a lead role in the Ecologies of Scale exhibit and the forthcoming Scenes and Speculations project. In addition to research, Kristina has been a designer at over,under in Boston. She received a Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University in 2009, and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design degree at Columbia University.

Muqeem Khan As a visual effect artist, Muqeem Khan’s motion picture credits with Walt Disney and Square USA are Deep Rising, George of the Jungle, Flubber, Armageddon and Final Fantasy. Khan is currently working as Associate Professor in Residence at Northwestern University in Qatar. Besides teaching interactive design, graphic design, interior design and concepts for emerging technologies, Khan has been teaching predominantly 2D/3D animation classes for over 12 years in the Arabian Gulf region. He has also served as a member of the technical committee for The International Association of Science and Technology Development (IASTED), Alberta, Canada. He holds a Master of Design (MDes) and Bachelor of Science (BS) in Industrial Design from Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. In his current doctoral research, he is looking at capturing and analyzing indigenous dances and their repeated patterns for Augmented Learning (AL) based serious gaming environment. He is pursuing this goal with the use of procedural animation and motion detecting technologies in the context of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). Khan strongly thinks that a creative individual should be searching, isolating, manipulating and managing the methodologies of multiple domains. Beside serious game design and other creative genres such as poetry, calligraphy, painting and digital filmmaking Khan also loves music and as a percussionist, he has been performing Tabla with various musicians around the world. His animations and mixed reality experimentations can be seen at: www.muqeemkhan.com

Debra Hanson is an art historian whose research focuses on American art and visual culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. She received her PhD in this area from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2005, with a secondary focus on gender studies. In 2008 and 2012, Dr Hanson was awarded Research Fellowships at the U. S. Capitol in Washington, D.C to conduct research on images of westward expansion in the Capitol art collection, and to compile additional material for a book in progress entitled Looking Westward: Views of the West from Capitol Hill. In 2010, she was awarded a Mellon Foundation Tocqueville Fellowship for new course development on a transnational American Studies topic. The resulting class, "Gateways to Globalism: The 19C World's Fairs," was taught at VCUQatar in the fall of 2011, and will be taught again at Georgetown/SFSQatar in the spring of 2013. In the summer 2011, a VCU Faculty Research grant supported continued research on this topic at the Victoria & Albert Museum and other venues in London. Her recent publications include a chapter on "Music as Muse: The Realist Agenda of Thomas Eakins's Elizabeth at the Piano" in Rival Sisters: Art and Music at the Birth of Modernism (Ashgate Publishing), and she most recently presented papers at the College Art Association and SECAC (Southeast College Art Conference) annual conferences.

Gaurang Desai is an Industrial Designer, Architect and Engineer. His research sits at the intersection of design, technology and sociology and encompasses participatory design, design of interactive devices and technological innovation and commercialization. He has taught Industrial Design, Design Management and Interactive Design courses for more than nine years at institutions such as the University of Western Sydney, KVb Raffles College of Design, Sydney and NIFT, India. He currently teaches in the Design Management program at the American University of Sharjah, UAE. Prior to his academic career, he worked as the Creative Head at Symbiosis Design where he won an award for his design of a Rural Primary School and a low-cost bank ATM.

Melanie McClintock is the creator and Program Director of Indoartamiks, a dynamic new educational program focused on increasing the creative and entrepreneurial skills of vocational craft students and their community in Bayat, Indonesia. She works directly with artists from a variety of fields to inspire innovative solutions to preserving the traditional crafts within the global economy. Prior to her current position, she worked at VCUQatar, as Assistant Professor in the Fashion Design department and Design Manager within the research lab, Innovation Qatar (iQ), where she responded to social, cultural and environmental needs regarding design. Educated as a fashion designer, Melanie has owned and operated her own boutique in New York, Ai Ai Gasa, where she created a platform for local designers and honed her ability to recognize fellow artistic talent. She responds to environmental issues with a collection of alternative rainwear from recycled umbrellas under the same name. Melanie continues to create personal works and to educate others on how to communicate through socially conscious fashion, design and mixed-media art.

JP Reuer is Founding Chair of the MFA Applied Craft and Design, a program collaboratively developed and offered jointly by Oregon College of Art and Craft, and Pacific Northwest College of Art. The MFA Applied Craft and Design, the only one of its kind, integrates knowledge of and skills in a variety of making practices with entrepreneurship and socially- and environmentally-driven work. Reuer is a LEED accredited architect and licensed general contractor, and has lived and worked on projects in New York, Montreal, Halifax, Berlin, Zurich, Vienna, and Doha, Qatar. He is an original member of Designbox, a collaborative of diverse creative professionals that is part creative think-tank, and part community incubator. Reuer blogs on community design issues for Metropolis Magazine. Reuer received his Bachelor of Environmental Design in Architecture from North Carolina State University and his Master of Architecture in Affordable Housing from McGill University.