DISCUSSIONS ON AUDIENCES
RESEARCH & DIGITAL DESIGN

Britton Stipetic is the Founder & Creative Director of Rogue, a worldwide digital branding studio spanning from Cape Cod to Tokyo. Rogue’s specialty is creating brands and experiences that are refreshingly human, culturally informed, and aesthetically relevant. When not designing, you can find Britton cooking up a storm, smoking meats over a fire, or walking on the beach with a Cold Brew in hand.

Angela Shen-Hsieh is an entrepreneur, technologist and designer and previously ran the Data Innovation Unit in Telefonica and the Watson Analytics and natural language artificial intelligence (AI) products at IBM Watson. Trained as an architect, Angela is a builder at heart. She has applied that to business and entrepreneurship, as the CEO and founder of four startups including Visual i|o, a venture-backed data visualization software company. She has been named a "Top Data Science Influencer” by The Data Standard, a Fast Company ‘Master of Design’, and one of “10 Cutting Edge Designers pushing the limits of design” by BusinessWeek. Angela holds six patents and has a BA from Columbia University and a Master in Architecture from Harvard University.  She currently lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is working on an AI startup in the home furnishings space.

Astrid Chow is the Principal Product Designer and Strategist building the UX Design and User Research practice at Eleanor Health, a healthcare startup that focuses on substance use disorders, alcohol use disorders, and mental health. She brings a passion for healthcare design experience from prior roles at Aetna/CVS and IBM Watson Health, where she led design on products and services related to AI, blockchain, and healthcare. Astrid emphasizes data-driven design: incorporating principles of behavior change to activate healthy behaviors and leveraging social determinants of health (SDOH) as a means to mitigate barriers to health equity.

Astrid serves as the VP board member for the User Experience Professionals’ Association (UXPA) Boston Chapter. Additionally, she is a frequent guest speaker and panelist on the topic of AI & Design Ethics at events such as Design Observer’s The Design of Business, the Business of Design conference, the HFES Health Care Symposium, Connected Health conference, ACM CHI and CSCW conferences, O’Reilly’s AI Conference, as well as UXStrat. In 2022, she taught an elective course on Design Ethics in Practice for the University of Washington MHCI+D program.

Astrid holds an MBA in Strategy and an MS in Human Factors in Information Design from Bentley University.

Juhan Sonin designs the future of healthcare at GoInvo. His design infects local, state, and national healthcare systems from food stamps in Massachusetts to care planning for half of US residents. Our healthcare is too important to be closed, which is why he drives an open source agenda. Juhan also teaches engineering + design at MIT.

Dan Vlahos is a Boston-based designer, artist, and educator. He is currently Assistant Professor of Visual and Performing Arts at Merrimack College, where he serves as Director of the Undergraduate Graphic Design Program.

Vlahos also serves on the Board of Directors for AIGA Boston and the Design Museum Foundation Council. Vlahos’ interdisciplinary design work has been recognized by the AIGA, the One Club, Print, How, and the Interactive Media Council. Vlahos began his career in Arnold Worldwide’s Volkswagen Design Group—and later served as Creative Director for Shepley Bulfinch architects. Vlahos’ clients include Harvard University, Duke University, Educators for Social Responsibility, and the Industrial History Center.

Dan received both an MFA and BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design—where he began teaching in 2009 and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2016. In 2017 Vlahos joined Merrimack College in a tenure-track position. Vlahos’ design research interests center on integrated branding, dynamic media, and creative learning. In 2020 Merrimack College’s Interdisciplinary Institute named Vlahos a Presidential Fellow, and in the same year, he became a member of the Society of Printers in Boston. In 2021 Vlahos entered into the Design Incubation writing program as a Fellow, and in 2023 he became a USGBC LEED Green Associate.

Chris has worked in the User Experience field for over 15 years, in leadership roles at the American Institutes for Research, Kleimann Communication Group, Digitas, and Bose. Since 2014, he has been the co-founder of Woods Creative, a Boston and Portland based experience and design studio, where he serves as Executive Experience Director. He manages the strategy and user experience capability. His background is in formative and summative research methodologies as well as brand and project strategy. He studies people: Their interactions with each other, brands, products, and what compels them to make the decisions that they do. His professional work is founded in communication theory and history through the lens of social psychology. He believes in the axiom: “one cannot not communicate,” and thinks there is always a message to be observed.
Chris holds a Master’s degree from Clark University in Communication Theory & Research and a BA from Wheaton College with a focus in History, Psychology, and Political Communication.

With 30+ years of experience, Meena has consulted to emphasize the strategic value and positioning of qualitative research in the design of product, space and service. Meena is fascinated by the complexity of human behavior, and applies a credible, structured and transparent approach to integrating human stories into mainstream processes. This ensures that research activities provide the best service to the organization, and that learning objectives are addressed to maximize potential.

Meena is a founding member of twig+fish, a research and strategy practice based in Boston, MA, that espouses these research beliefs, while maintaining a utopic work-life balance. She is also a key Lecturer in the Bentley University Human Factors and Information Design (HFID) graduate program. Over her 20+ year tenure, her capstone qualitative research course has guided now-leading practitioners to crafting meaningful and successful research practices. She has openly shared her experience as a lone WOC as part of the curriculum she has constructed, to invite more diversity into the discipline.

She holds an M.S. in Information Resources Management from Syracuse University and a B.Com. in MIS from the University of Ottawa, Canada. Meena is always inspired in her work by her other passions, namely performing as a South-Indian Classical Violinist, pursuing culinary arts by providing a learn-to-cook program, and immersing in the career pursuits of her two children!