Kelly Walters is an Assistant Professor and the Associate Director of the BFA Communication Design program in Parsons School of Design at The New School. In her independent design studio Bright Polka Dot, she works across platforms to create publications, exhibitions, and digital experiences for educational and cultural institutions. Her ongoing design research interrogates the complexities of identity, systems of value, and shared vernacular in and around Black visual culture. 

Nida Abdullah is an Assistant Professor in the Undergraduate Communications Design program at Pratt Institute. Prior to her appointment there, she was an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University and Lecturer of Graphic Design at Georgia State University. Her research interests focus on the conditions and circumstances for designing, deconstructing, and disrupting inherited hierarchical and hegemonic modes of production.

Jason Alejandro is a Puerto Rican graphic designer and educator. He is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at the College of New Jersey. His work examines, addresses, and questions aspects of cultural identity, professional practice and critical pedagogy through research, making, and writing. He previously taught at Rutgers University, Lehigh University, Kean University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Jason received his MFA in Graphic Design from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Anne H. Berry is a writer, designer, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Design at Cleveland State University. Her research focuses on design education and ethnic and racial representation within the field of graphic design. She is a 2018 Design Incubation Fellow, and she recently published an essay titled “The Black Designer’s Identity” for Recognize, an online design anthology presented by InVision that features essays from Indigenous people and people of color.

Iyana Martin Diaz is a Dominican American designer who’s work centers public and equitable engagement, interdisciplinary design, and informed digital innovation. Earning dual degrees from The New School, Iyana holds a BFA in Communication Design from Parsons School of Design and a BA in Culture and Media from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. She currently leads design across the Digital Production team at Columbia Records.

Ashley Doughty is a visual storyteller, explaining personal experiences through verbal and visual language. Much of her practice deals with socioeconomic, racial, and gender-based issues, particularly those relating to cultural misconceptions and the development of personal identity. She shares and encourages such art-making as an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She holds a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Ali Shamas Qadeer is a designer and educator based in Toronto. After completing a BA in philosophy and religious studies at McGill University, he developed an independent design practice in New York City before returning to school to complete an MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2014. His work focuses on algorithmic formmaking, interaction design, and the possibility of graphic design to operate as a new discipline within the humanities. He is an Assistant Professor in the graphic and industrial design programs at OCAD University. In his teaching practice, Qadeer champions a critical approach that always refracts through a practice of formalism and making.

Jennifer Rittner is a writer, educator, and communications strategist who teaches courses in design history, design for social value, and thesis writing in the graduate programs at the School of Visual Arts (SVA). She has been published in the New York Times, DMI: Journal, Core77, AIGA Eye on Design, and Against the Grain. She frequently writes and lectures about design and social justice.

Samuel Romero is a visual artist and educator. After receiving his MFA in painting and drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007, Romero returned to his home state of Florida, where he is currently an Associate Professor of Art and Graphic Design Program Director at Florida Southern College. Romero is also a founding member and creative director of the US Latinx Art Forum.

Kaleena Sales is a writer, illustrator, and graphic design educator at Tennessee State University, an HBCU in Nashville, TN. Her research focuses on Black culture and aesthetics, and her recent illustration work has been selected for inclusion in the 2021 Communication Arts Illustration annual. Kaleena is co-author, alongside Ellen Lupton, of the book Extra-Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Non-Binary Field Guild for Graphic Designers.

Shantanu Suman is an Assistant Professor of Visual Communication at Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana. In a career spanning over seventeen years, Shantanu has worked in India and the United States as an art director, graphic designer, documentary filmmaker, and design educator. Shantanu constantly draws inspiration from his Indian roots and uses Hindi typography within his work to make Devanagari script relevant in the current design discourse.

Ramon Tejada identifies as an independent New Yorkino / Dominican / Latinx / Black + Brown / American designer and educator. Based in Providence, Rhode Island, his hybrid design and teaching practice, Estudio Ramon, focuses on “the disruption and puncturing of the Design Canon, inclusivity, diversity, collaboration, and the expansion and openings of design narratives and languages beyond the ‘traditional’ Westernized paradigm of design.” He is an Assistant Professor at Rhode Island School of Design.

David Jon Walker is a designer and Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. He is principal of Rhealistic Design, a boutique design consultancy that specializes in branding and collateral. Mr. Walker works with national political candidates, PACs, non-profits, governmental entities, and varying businesses lending his talents to their marketing efforts to increase awareness and further campaigns. Before joining the faculty at Austin Peay State University, Walker taught at Middle Tennessee State University.