People

Terry Irwin has been a professor in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University since 2009 and served as Head of School from 2009 to 2019. Her work focuses on advancing Transition Design research, education, and practice to support societal transitions toward more sustainable futures and systems-level change.

Gideon Kossoff teaches Transition Design and the emerging ecological worldview in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. He has a wide range of research interests, but is particularly interested in the implications of the emerging ecological worldview for our understanding of what it means to be human, and how we organize human affairs.

Jonathan Chapman leads the PhD program at Carnegie Mellon and is the author of five books at the intersection of industrial design, user experience, and the circular economy. He is a strategic advisor to global businesses including Puma, COS, and Phillips, and organizations like The House of Lords, the United Nations, and NASA.

Kristin Hughes specializes in community engagement and participatory design. Her interdisciplinary research blends design thinking, creativity, and communication design to empower individuals, strengthen civic engagement, and reveal community identities. Through Translational Design, she equips audiences with creative tools to overcome healthcare barriers, bridge communication gaps, and reduce inequities—effectively improving patient outcomes. By merging design with translational medicine, she fosters collaboration and transforms complex science into accessible, impactful healthcare solutions.

Mark Baskinger serves as Professor, Chair of Product Design, and Director of the Joseph Ballay Center for Design Fusion in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. His research interests include tangible interaction design, deep time artifacts and material culture, durational design, and methodologies for visual thinking.

Situated in formal and informal learning contexts, Stacie’s research investigates the design of learning experiences as complex systems. Her work aims to boost enjoyment in the learning process and foster understanding. Stacie actively engages with student teams and project sponsors, applying innovative learning theories to contemporary challenges, with recent efforts focused on aiding the understanding and treatment of eating disorders.

Sarosh Anklesaria is an architect and educator at Carnegie Mellon, where he chairs the M.Arch program. His work explores architectural agency across scales, linking design to justice, ecology, and worldmaking. He’s held fellowships from Harvard GSD and Taliesin, and his work was featured in the 2021 Venice Biennale. Sarosh has practiced globally, co-founded Anthill Design in India, and taught at Yale, Cornell, CEPT, and other institutions.

Jonathan Kline is a Studio Professor at Carnegie Mellon Architecture and a founding faculty member of the Master of Urban Design program. His teaching and research focus on global urbanism and public interest design. He is principal of Studio for Spatial Practice, an award-winning interdisciplinary firm. A trained artist, Jonathan integrates architecture, urban design, and visual art to explore the evolving spatial and social dynamics of cities.

Derk Loorbach is director of the Dutch Research Institute For Transitions (DRIFT),and professor of socio-economic transitions at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. His work focuses on leveraging transitions thinking for accelerating just sustainability transitions. It combines the more theoretical understanding of the different types of agency that drive or work against desired transitions and the practical approach of transition management that combines activism, design thinking, and social entrepreneurship.

Pierson-Brown investigates the use of Transition Design to realize the community-centered problem-solving aims of the health justice movement. She argues that using Transition Design advances health justice praxis: a structural perspective on the causes of health inequity; a pluriversal perspective on community; and a decolonial perspective on community engagement.

İdil Gaziulusoy is Associate Professor of Sustainable Design and leader of NODUS Sustainable Design Research Group at Aalto University, Finland. She is also the Program Director of the interdisciplinary Creative Sustainability Master’s program.

Cameron Tonkinwise is Professor and Director of Design Studies at the University of Technology Sydney, where he also teaches Service Design. Cameron has undertaken Transition Design projects in relation to Distributed Energy Systems and Financial Services, especially in relation to scam prevention, and Planning for Supported Ageing.

Mariana Amatullo’s research and publications are situated at the intersection of design and management, highlighting the role of design as a cognitive approach to organizational culture and social innovation. Mariana holds a PhD in Management (Designing Sustainable Systems) from Case Western Reserve University, an M.A. in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of Southern California, and a Licence en Lettres from Sorbonne University.

Zeynep Falay von Flittner is a Transition Designer, strategist, and the founder of Falay Transition Design Collective, a creative think tank focusing on sustainability transitions. Falay Collective collaborates with public and private organizations, as well as NGOs, to develop systemic strategies, futures simulations, and regenerative leadership practices that foster resilience and transformative change.

Roberto Iñiguez Flores is an educator, designer, and Associate Provost for Academic and Faculty Affairs at Tecnológico de Monterrey. Awarded with the National Design Award/UNESCO – Lifetime Achievement in Education, he is also part of different international boards and academic conferences such as Cumulus Association – The Global Association of Art and Design Education, where he serves as vice president. He holds a PhD in Design from Universitat Politécnica de Valencia, and his main research interests are Design Futures and its role on sustainable transitions.

Daniela Di Bella is a professor in the Master in Design Management program at the University of Palermo in Argentina. She is Coordinator of the DC-UP Research Project Incubator and Director of the Research Line Design in Perspective. She has a Master’s in Design Management and a PhD in Higher Education from the University of Palermo.

Dr. Joanna Boehnert is the author of ‘Design, Ecology, Politics: Towards the Ecocene,’ and is currently working on a three-year, AHRC-funded project titled ‘Transition Templates: Pathways to Net Zero.’ Originally from Canada, she is now based in the UK.