Fellows
LUMA Fellows are luminaries in their respective fields. They are active promoters of design literacy and strong advocates of LUMA’s mission. We look to them for inspiration and direction.
Elaine Ann
Founder / Principal
Kaizor Innovation
Elaine Ann is the founder of Kaizor Innovation, a strategic innovation consulting company in Hong Kong, China. Her company is uniquely positioned to help develop appropriate innovation strategies, research and designs for the emerging China market. She is well versed and can write in both Chinese (PuTongHua & Cantonese) and English. Elaine brings to Asia processes of new product innovation and user-centered design methodologies. Elaine lived in the United States from 1990-2002. While in the U.S., she worked as a director in the Fitch Interaction group in San Francisco and also at Razorfish and Henry Dreyfuss Associates in New York. Her past clients include Hewlett-Packard, Philips, Kodak, Charles Schwab, Federal Reserve, Intuit, SRI (Stanford Research Institute), Nissan, Fujitsu, PCCW (Pacific Century Cyber Works), Lan Kwai Fong, iMerchants etc. Elaine is also a Visiting Lecturer of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, School of Design and a Member of the Industrial Designers Society of America.
Joe Ballay
Founder / Principal
MAYA Design
Joe is a nationally known industrial designer and former senior faculty member in the Department of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. As the head of the department, he was instrumental in orienting CMU’s design programs toward integrating high technology with traditional graphic and industrial design.
Tim Best, Ph.D.
Federal Technology Projects
Ohio Board of Regents
Tim Best leads MATRIX Learning, a federal Star Schools grant that researches the effects of mobile technologies and serious games in middle school math classrooms in California, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Ohio for the Ohio Board of Regents. He recently directed catalystOHIO, a federal Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology grant, that in collaboration with Ohio’s state universities designed and delivered technology professional development to over 2,500 professors. Prior to his work with the Ohio Board of Regents, Dr. Best established Ohio SchoolNet, a state agency charged with distributing over $800 million for educational technology to Ohio’s schools. In that capacity, he developed technology strategy and policy for the State of Ohio, examined implementation issues regarding technology and provided leadership in executing service offerings and products that focused on technology and learning for Ohio schools. He was the first executive director of the Center for Leadership in Education, a Cleveland-based foundation involved in school change.
Kevin Craig, Ph.D.
Robert C. Greenheck Chair in Engineering Design
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Marquette University
Kevin Craig joined Marquette University in January 2008. He received his B.S. degree from West Point, and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He spent the last 18 years teaching and performing research in mechatronic system design at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. At RPI, he developed the Mechatronics Program, which included an extensive teaching and research laboratory and several senior-undergraduate and graduate-level courses, and graduated 37 M.S. students and 20 Ph.D. students. He currently writes a monthly column for Design News magazine on Mechatronics. Over the past dozen years, he has conducted hands-on, integrated, customized, mechatronics workshops for practicing engineers at Xerox, Procter & Gamble, Rockwell Automation, Fiat, and Siemens, among others. He is a Fellow of the ASME and a member of the IEEE and ASEE. He received the 2006 RPI School of Engineering Education Excellence Award and the 2006 RPI Trustees’ Outstanding Teacher Award.
Jodi Forlizzi
Professor, School of Design, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, and The A. Nico Habermannn Chair in the School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Jodi teaches graduate-level courses in advanced interface and interaction design. She is interested in how people experience products in order to develop a theory of experience as it relates to interaction design. She conducts research on how technology can bring people new kinds of experiences, beyond those traditionally associated with human-computer interaction. Forlizzi’s research interests include assistive, social, and aesthetic technology products and systems, and notification systems that range from ambient displays to avatars and embodied robots. Prior to coming to Carnegie Mellon, Professor Forlizzi held positions as Innovator and Project Manager for E-Lab in Chicago, where she specialized in research for new product design.
James P. “Pat” O’Neal
Co-Founder
Broad River Group, LLC
James “Pat” O’Neal is a retired 2-star general with 30 years of service in the United States Army. Spanning the period from 1969 to 1999, Pat served in critical command positions and as a faculty member of West Point. Following retirement, Pat O’Neal joined the Institute for Defense Analyses working on Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency programs such as Command Post of the Future, and Future Combat System. He is also a principle partner and co-founder of Broad River Group, a consulting company offering military subject matter expertise and business development consulting in the defense sector. Most recently, he has worked with the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) in developing high risk technology for military application and is currently working with Joint Forces Command in developing Command and Control Systems for the 2015 joint, interagency and homeland security environments.