Event Speakers
2024–25 Academic Year
Paola Antonelli
Senior Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, and Director, Research and Development at MoMA
Jessica Banks
Inventor, designer, entrepreneur, TV personality, roboticist
Kevin Bethune
Designer, Author
Benjamin Bratton
Professor of Philosophy of Technology and Speculative Design
Stuart Candy
Experiential Futurist, Artist, Educator
Carissa Carter
Designer, Geoscientist, Academic Director at the Stanford d.school
Alison J. Clarke
Professor of Design History and Theory, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Marcelo Coelho
Head of Design, Formlabs; Lecturer, MIT Architecture
Joshua Croom
Fund Management Fellow
Sheila A. Dillon
Chief of Housing and Director of the Mayor's Office of Housing for the city of Boston
Scott Doorley
Writer, Designer, Creative Director at the Stanford d.school.
Nia K. Evans
Executive Director, Boston Ujima Project
Kathleen Evans
Senior Director of Capital Deployment at MassHousing
Tony Fadell
Engineer, designer, entrepreneur, and investor
Behnaz Farahi
Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences; Asahi Broadcast Corp Career Development Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab
Susy Jones
Senior Sustainability Project Manager, MIT Office of Sustainability
Declan Keefe
Entrepreneur, Innovator, Cooperative Organizer
Anaya Raikar
High school student
Susanne Schindler
Research Fellow, Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
Michael Sheldrick
Policy Entrepreneur
Justin Steil
Associate Professor of Law and Urban Planning, MIT DUSP
Bob Weis
Designer, Imagineer
2023–24 Academic Year
Pedro Ignacio Alonso
Associate Professor of Architecture
Kelli Anderson
Designer
Jeanette Andrews
Artist, Magician, Researcher
Lynda Barry
Award-winning Author & Artist
Benjamin Bratton
Professor of Philosophy of Technology and Speculative Design
Dario Calmese
Designer
Tiffany Cheng
Designer
Teddy Cruz
Professor
Catherine D'Ignazio
Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning
Paula Ehrlich
DVM, PhD, President & CEO
Fonna Forman
Professor
Janelle Knox-Hayes
Professor of Economic Geography and Planning, MIT DUSP; Director of the Resilient Communities Lab
David Sun Kong
Synthetic biologist, bio designer, community organizer, musician, and photographer
Dennis Liu
PhD, Vice President of Education
Adriana Mallozzi
Entrepreneur, Technologist, Passionate advocate for disability inclusion
Gita Manaktala
Executive Editor
Aditya Mehrotra
Mechanical Engineer
Ayr Muir
Founder, CEO
Dietmar Offenhuber
Designer, Urban Planner
Hugo Palmarola
Associate Professor of Design
Richard Perez
founding director, Hasso Plattner School of Design Thinking, University of Cape Town
Jesse Louis-Rosenberg
Artist, Computer Programmer, Maker
Jessica Rosenkrantz
Artist, Designer, Programmer
Hannah Wong
Master of Architecture Candidate, Harvard Graduate School of Design; Project Manager, Critical Design Lab
2023 Power of Design Conference
2022–23 Academic Year
Maria Aguiar
MIT SEVT Vice-Captain
Saeed Arida
Co-founder and Chief Excitement Officer, NuVu
Maria Yang
Kendall Rohsenow Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Associate Director, Morningside Academy for Design; Faculty Director for Academics, MIT D-Lab; Founder and Director, MIT Ideation Lab
Norhan Bayomi
Environmental scientist, architect, inventor, electronic music producer, and Trance DJ
Justin Brazier
Architect, Environmentalist
Cynthia Breazeal
Professor Media Arts and Sciences, Media Lab; MIT Dean for Digital Learning; Director, MIT RAISE Initiative
John Cary
President and CEO, Eames Institute and The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity
Natsai Audrey Chieza
Founder and CEO, Faber Futures
Svafa Grönfeldt
Professor of Practice, SA+P; Faculty Director, MITdesignX
Sara Hendren
Writer, Design Researcher, Artist, and Cultural Producer; Associate Professor, Northeastern University
Tony Hu
Director of MIT’s Integrated Design & Management Master’s Program
Sheila Kennedy
MIT Professor of Architecture, innovator and educator
Bon Ku
Marta and Robert Adelson Professor of Medicine and Design, Sidney Kimmel Medical College
Jae Rhim Lee
Design Strategist, Entrepreneur, Senior TED Fellow at TED Conferences
Miho Mazereeuw
Associate Professor, Architecture and Urbanism; Director, Urban Risk Lab at MIT
Michael Murphy
Thomas Ventulett Chair of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology
Dava Newman
Apollo Professor of Astronautics; Director, MIT Media Lab
Maria Nicanor
Director, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Kristala L.J. Prather
Arthur Dehon Little Professor, MIT Department of Chemical Engineering Executive Officer
Mark Rober
Engineer, Educator, YouTuber
Jana Saadi
Engineer, Designer
Arvind Satyanarayan
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Adam Savage
Maker, Designer
Amy Smith
Senior Lecturer of Mechanical Engineering; Founding Director, MIT D-Lab
Daniel Sweeney
D-Lab Research Scientist, Biomass Fuel & Cookstoves; Lecturer
Skylar Tibbits
Associate Professor, Architecture; Director, Self-Assembly Lab at MIT; Assistant Director for Education, Morningside Academy for Design
Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall
Dean of the Faculty of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design University
Fernanda Viégas
Professor at Harvard, data visualizer, computational designer, speaker
Martin Wattenberg
Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Havard
Rosa Weinberg
K-12 Design Education Lead
Patrick Whitney
Professor in Residence, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Steelcase Endowed Chair and Dean Emeritus, Illinois Institute of Technology
Sarah Williams
Associate Professor, DUSP; Director, MIT Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism
Jonathan Zong
Computer Scientist, Artist
2022 Power of Design Conference