Design Fellows bring unique perspectives to the Jacobs community. Fellows participating in design activities and exchanging ideas with students and other members of the institute’s community. Each fellow contributes to the institute in a different way, in formats that range from open office hours to creative workshops. Students and instructors, we invite you to get to know the design fellows by checking out their bios and setting up a time to talk with them; learn more below.
If you are a design professional and are interested in serving as a Jacobs Design Fellow, please reach out to Stephanie Bianco.
Zahin Ali
Senior Interaction Design Lead at IDEO
Zahin Ali (IEOR ’11) is an Interaction Design Lead at IDEO where he leads interdisciplinary project teams to solve ambiguous problems with human-centered design thinking practices. He engages in all stages of the innovation process: defining strategy, user research, identifying key insights, building and testing prototypes, product/vision storytelling, and bringing products and services to market. As a design consultant, he works with a growing portfolio of global clients in a range of industries such as mobility, healthcare, education, and financial services. In a prior career, he leveraged his Berkeley IEOR degree to design manufacturing systems at Tesla. He then made his way to design in an unconventional path via startups, a stint with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and with graduate work from Art Center College of Design and the Carnegie Mellon University School of Design where he earned a Masters in Interaction Design. He currently teaches a graduate course in Visual Design at the DePaul University School of Computing and Digital Media. Schedule a meeting with Zahin during his office hours.
Jaewoo Chung
Head of UX Design & Research at HP, Consumer PC & Immersive Computing Group
Jaewoo Chung, Ph.D., is a UX leader and technologist trained in the field of UX Design, HCI, Computer Science, Music Composition and Psychology. He received his PhD from MIT Media Lab. Jaewoo has been working in industry and academia more than 20 years, dealing on various topics such as multi-modal interaction systems (voice, gesture, touch), intelligent systems for mobile and wearable, virtual/mixed reality, IoT, decision support systems, and smart homes. He is currently Head of UX Design and Research @ HP and previously, he was the Director of Next Experience Display Lab @ Samsung. Get in touch with Jaewoo via email at jwc311@gmail.com; his weekly office hours are Fridays 9am – 2pm.
Mason Friedburg
Group Manager of Design & Development at the Exploratorium
Mason Friedberg (MEng ’19) is an engineer and designer working at the crossroads of functionality and aesthetic. With a background in mechanical engineering and product design from Texas A&M and UC Berkeley, his experience in prototyping research and development, automotive, food robotics, and client product design gives him a diverse portfolio of many different aspects of industry. Designing for emotional connection to create engaging experiences that draw users in is something he strives for in all his work. He is currently working at the forefront of exhibit engineering and design at San Francisco’s well known interactive science museum, the Exploratorium, as a Manager of the Design and Development team. He is also a huge hands-on tinkerer and appreciator of all things craft. Mason has previously given guest lectures at Jacobs in DES INV 15: Design Methodology, DES INV 10: Discovering Design, and DES INV 190: Human Centered Design Methods. He is excited to talk with students about exhibit and experience design, product development, mechanical design, and give general career advice. You can book a time to speak with him on his Calendly page.
Purin Phanichphant
Freelance Designer & Artist
Purin Phanichphant is an artist, designer, and educator with a deep interest in the intersection between creativity and mindfulness. Purin combines his roots in Northern Thailand, where he spent part of his life as a Buddhist monk, with his background in designing innovative products and experiences in the San Francisco Bay Area. He holds a BFA in Industrial Design and Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University, and an MFA in Product Design from Stanford University. He previously worked as a principal product designer at IDEO San Francisco, and taught design courses at Stanford University and General Assembly. Over the past several years at the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation, he has taught DES INV 21: Visual Communication and Sketching, DES INV 181: Reimagining Mobility, and held multiple workshops on Visual Design Hacking and Designing Your First Portfolio. As a Design Fellow, he hopes to help students realize their full potential not only as design practitioners, but also as designers of their own lives and the world we all live in. Contact Purin via email or book an office hour appointment with him.
Sonali Verma
UX Researcher at Google
Sonali Verma is passionate about designing patient-centered healthcare systems. She uses qualitative research methods to understand human behavior and advocate for the voice of the user (often patients and clinicians). Sonali has been working within the healthcare industry as a User Experience Researcher (UXR) for the past six years. As a UXR at Google, she collaborates with product teams, clinicians, and partnered health systems to design AI tools within the breast cancer, maternal health, ophthalmology, and dermatology space. For three years, she worked on designing tools & services that aim to increase access to preventative screenings in rural, last-mile communities. Sonali developed her passion for global health equity and design thinking while managing the deployment of pilots in the U.S and LMIC settings. Her work has enabled her to form a deeper understanding of challenges in the global health ecosystem.
Sonali graduated from University of California, Berkeley in 2018. Her interdisciplinary major (cognitive psychology, computer science, and human-centered design) changed the way she thinks about equity and designing solutions for behavioral/social change. During her time at Berkeley, she was passionate about teaching her peers the value of design thinking and giving back to her design community. As Vice President of Berkeley Innovation (a student-run human-centered design consultancy), she mentored thirty-five student consultants as they worked on semester-long human-centered design projects with their clients. She was an instructor for a student-led design course, where she taught human-centered design methodologies to eighty students interested in learning practical design skills such as user research, prototyping, and user testing. She’s excited to continue mentoring students interested in design at Cal. You can book a time to meet with her on her Calendly page.