Design Nexus Summit

Andrew Witt is an architect, mathematician, educator, and co-founder of Certain Measures, a Boston- and Berlin-based design and technology studio addressing complex spatial and systemic problems through computation, data, and design. He is also Associate Professor in Practice in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where his research examines the relationships among geometry, computation, machines, perception, construction, and culture. Certain Measures’ work has been exhibited internationally and is held in the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou.

Brooke Hopper is a design leader and Senior Principal Designer on Adobe’s Machine Intelligence & New Technology team, where she explores how generative AI and emerging technologies can expand rather than diminish human creativity. During more than a decade at Adobe, she has helped shape products including Adobe Fresco and early experiments that contributed to Adobe Firefly, with particular attention to artist agency, creative workflows, and accessible tools for creators. She is also an active speaker on the changing relationship between artists, designers, artificial intelligence, and creative practice.

Patrik Hübner is a German interdisciplinary designer and creative technologist working at the intersection of generative design, creative coding, branding, data, and storytelling. Combining the perspectives of a creative director and technologist, he develops dynamic visual identities and brand experiences that respond to data, context, and human interaction; his clients and collaborators have included major international brands and agencies including Lexus, The New York Times, Landor, Interbrand, and Publicis. His award-winning work has been widely exhibited and presented, and he previously visited CMU as part of the School of Design Lecture Series in 2024.

Sundar Raman is a creative engineer and co-founder and CTO of PRESENT, an experience-design firm working at the intersection of technology, storytelling, and physical space. Previously Director of Technology at Dubai’s Museum of the Future and at New York design studio Local Projects, Raman has contributed to major interactive cultural projects including the Cooper Hewitt, National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Museum of the City of New York, Eisenhower Memorial, and Museum of the Future. His current work explores “bi-directional interactive environments”—immersive spaces that can actively respond to and engage their visitors.

Violet Whitney is a designer, technologist, educator, and co-founder of Spatial Pixel, a research and design studio developing alternatives to screen- and headset-centered computing. Her work explores spatial and embodied computing, artificial intelligence, computer vision, projection mapping, and ambient interfaces, with the goal of making digital experiences more physical, social, and integrated into everyday environments. Previously a product and design leader at Google’s Sidewalk Labs, Whitney has taught spatial and computational design at Columbia, Penn, SVA, and the University of Michigan.

Robert Bollinger is an entrepreneur, designer, and CMU School of Design alumnus best known as the founder of Bollinger Motors, which pioneered purpose-built electric trucks and commercial vehicle platforms. He has maintained a close relationship with CMU, including sponsoring student design projects that used Bollinger vehicle platforms to explore applications such as emergency response and infrastructure resilience. Bollinger has been in residence with the School of Design as the Transportation & Mobility Innovator, working closely with the Joseph Ballay Center for Design Fusion. 

Beth Lester Sidhu is CEO of SPORT BEACH, Stagwell’s global platform connecting athletes, brands, marketers, and creators at the intersection of sport, business, media, and culture. She helped build SPORT BEACH from its launch at Cannes Lions into a broader platform with activations surrounding events such as the Super Bowl, NBA All-Star Weekend, and CES; prior to taking the CEO role in 2026, she served as Stagwell’s Chief Brand and Communications Officer and earlier as COO and CMO. Her career also includes leadership roles at POLITICO, Burson-Marsteller, Penn Schoen Berland, and CBS News.

Byron Merritt is a veteran design and creative leader with more than 30 years of experience shaping brand and customer experiences at Amazon, Nike, Delta Air Lines, and IDEO. At Amazon Music, he leads multidisciplinary teams spanning product and UX design, brand strategy and design, research, and creative, with a focus on artist and fan experiences and the evolution of Amazon Music as an entertainment brand. Trained as an architect at SCI-Arc, Merritt also maintains a photography practice, with work in the permanent collection of the Portland Art Museum.

Aditi Sharma is a Design Director at Amazon shaping the frontier of agentic AI—where intelligence becomes action and technology must earn the right to act on our behalf.

At AWS, Aditi shapes agentic experiences across cloud security, autonomous observability, governance assurance, and search intelligence—with a simple ambition: intelligent products should feel like they are on the customer’s side. Her “graduation moments” framework defines the evidence-led, reversible transitions through which a product moves from “show me what you’d do” to “just do it,” earning greater autonomy one proven interaction at a time. She is also building an intelligence flywheel that turns market, business, and customer signals into reusable interaction patterns and shipped experiences, then feeds evidence from those experiences back into what teams build next. The result is a full-cycle, AI-native practice in which designers help shape product direction, define platform architecture, and ship code—not merely produce artifacts for others to implement.

Gaetan DeSimone is a digital artist, motion designer and creative technologist with approximately 15 years of experience connecting animation, storytelling and emerging technology. Before joining Adobe, he developed motion-design systems and animated content for Nickelodeon properties including SpongeBob SquarePants and The Loud House, following earlier work with WWE, Outside TV, MTV and other media brands. His practice combines tools such as After Effects, Character Animator, Illustrator, Firefly, generative AI and scripting to create new content workflows and make sophisticated technology usable by creative practitioners. His independent animation project, Fresh Cake, has reportedly generated more than 2.4 billion views on Giphy.

Jenn Harvey is a design and research leader focused on making complex healthcare and pharmacy experiences simpler, more intuitive and more human-centered. Before her broader leadership role within Amazon Health Services, she served as Vice President of Experience Design at PillPack and led UX design and research for Amazon Pharmacy. Her work sits at the intersection of digital product design, service design and patient experience—helping people navigate medications and healthcare services with greater ease and confidence. 

Julienne DeVita is a design-futures practitioner, educator and researcher whose work combines strategic foresight, systems thinking and design to help organizations anticipate change over five- to twenty-year horizons. She is also founder of Liminal and a part-time professor at Parsons, where she teaches design futures, immersive scenario planning and AI for creative practice. Her research addresses creative learning, AI ethics and social justice; she has developed an AI Design Ethics Toolkit and published peer-reviewed work on AI as a relational element in creative education.