Designing Change - Virtual Panel Discussion

Jenie Gao

Jenie Gao (she/they) is a full-time artist, creative director, and entrepreneur. She runs an anti-gentrification arts business, specializing in printmaking, public art, social practice, and storytelling. She consults for cultural organizations and the public sector on equity and ethics. 

Jenie pulls from personal and professional experiences as a second generation Taiwanese-Chinese American. Prior to founding their business, Jenie worked in the museum industry, public education, and manufacturing sectors. Through their cross section of experiences, Jenie has become attuned to how the design of organizations determines who has access to creativity, autonomy, leadership, and decision-making. Jenie advocates for fair treatment of labor and expanded cultural authorship for historically excluded perspectives. She runs a paid apprenticeship program and has thus far mentored 25 emerging artists. Jenie has a BFA in Printmaking/Drawing from Washington University in St. Louis. They are an MFA candidate at Emily Carr University, where they are developing research on artists’ labour, cultural power, and institutional accountability. 

Leo Vicenti

Leo Vicenti (Jicarilla Apache) is a passionate lifelong learner who supports Indigenous Cultures through the practice of Visual Communication Design. He is an Assistant Professor of Communication Design at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, where he teaches exhibition design amongst other focuses. He holds an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in Visual Communication Design and a BA in Graphic Design from Fort Lewis College (FLC). 

Rama Chorpash

Rama Chorpash’s Industrial Design practice focuses on sublime intersections between people and everyday things. His products traverse an array of project types, from an innovative office furniture system with Herman Miller that rethinks work environments and on-demand manufacturing to a New York ‘made-in-place’ potato masher that questions international supply chain and envisions a future for more localized sustainable production.  

Chorpash is also a University Senator and tenured Associate Professor of Product Design at Parsons, The New School. As an academic leader, he has chaired three industrial design programs and was the founding director and author of Parsons MFA Industrial Design. His research and service include working as a Fulbright Specialist in Denmark to reconsider Modernist furniture and super-aging society, as well as active roles in panel discussions. He regularly judges International competitions and contributes as an academic or/and practitioner across many institutions.  

Chorpash’s design has been exhibited coast to coast from the Museum of Modern Art to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He has featured profiles in The New York Times Style Magazine and The New Yorker. Elle Décor listed him as one of the ten most influential people in design

Amanda Huynh

Amanda Huynh 黃珮詩 (she/her) is a product and food designer based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY) where she is Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at Pratt Institute. She lectures and exhibits worldwide and her work has been featured in Core77, IDSA INNOVATION magazine, MOLD, enRoute Magazine, and Canadian Geographic. She holds a BDes in Industrial Design from Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada, and a Master’s in Food Design from Scuola Politecnica di Design in Milan, Italy.