2025 SEGD Academic Summit

Event Details

The 2025 SEGD Academic Summit is a virtual event hosted on June 17 and June 18.

The SEGD Academic Summit is a forum for trends in design education research, projects and curriculum innovation for design academics, students and researchers. This event is great for industry members as well, to reconnect and learn about new ideas evolving from current research. This event is entirely free and promotes the latest developments in design research and education.

Speakers

Joell Angel-Chumbley

EGD Lead, DOTE, Architecture and Urban Design Office at City of Cincinnati

Lisa K. Bambach

Master of Design Graduate at University of Washington

Vivian Natalia Combariza Mejía

Graphic Intern at H&R

Steven Coward

Experiential Designer at Pinnacle Exhibits

Seojoo Han

Assistant Professor at University of Florida

Huiwon Lim

Assistant Professor at Penn State

Sarah Miorelli

Planner at Exit Design

Kellyn Nettles

Designer / Worker-Owner / Co-Director of Publishing at Àrokò Cooperative

Lisa K. Bambach is a designer, strategist, and educator based out of Seattle, Washington. Lisa graduated this summer from the University of Washington Master of Design program and holds a B.S. in Graphic Design and a Minor in German Studies from the University of Cincinnati. As an experiential graphic designer and strategist who specializes in workplace and urban design, Lisa enhances interaction with physical spaces by integrating narratives and navigation cues into the environment. Whether working within the private or public sector, she aspires to build collaborative environments that promote discourse and build relationships. As an educator, Lisa has worked for over 15 years with young designers in both the secondary and collegiate levels who are being introduced to design methodology, technology, systems thinking, and professional practices.

Vivian Combariza is a multidisciplinary designer from Colombia with a Master’s degree in Interior Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Her background bridges product design and spatial storytelling, and she is particularly interested in how exhibitions can function as environments for dialogue, imagination, and participation.

Vivian’s work explores the emotional and social potential of space, often drawing inspiration from systems in nature. She is especially drawn to projects that rethink how people engage with museums, cultural spaces, and each other—moving away from static displays and toward more collaborative, living experiences.

While at RISD, she led and collaborated on several student exhibitions and developed her thesis, A Living Storyscape, which imagines museums as ecosystems—responsive, interconnected, and co-created. The project blends ecological metaphors with design research to challenge how we build meaning through space.

Now based between the U.S. and Colombia, Vivian continues to explore exhibition and experience design, with a focus on creating spaces that feel alive, inclusive, and deeply human.

Steven Coward is a 3D Experiential Designer based in Brooklyn, New York, specializing in the design and architectural planning for museums, exhibitions, and branded experiences. With a background in architecture and interior design, he brings over a decade of experience in both 2D and 3D spatial design to his work.

Steven is passionate about crafting visitor-centered experiences that combine storytelling, digital media, and integrative spatial strategies in the built environment. His work is rooted in a collaborative design process that transforms authentic narratives into engaging, dynamic, and thought-provoking experiences. A recent graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Exhibition and Experience Design program, he is driven by a commitment to create meaningful and inclusive spaces. He believes that successful design combines the aesthetically purposeful with the successfully functional in its ability to shape and interpret space, experience, and story.
In his free time, Steven can be found sewing fringe onto everything he owns while listening to his favorite Dolly Parton playlist.

Seojoo Han is an assistant professor in the School of Art and Art History at the University of Florida. His current research explores the spatial manifestations of communication design and its historical and ongoing role in community-building across various domains, including typography, print and publishing cultures, archival practices, vernacular placemaking, and both historical and contemporary youth subcultures.

Most recently, Han has been active in South Dakota as a key contributor to two EPA-TAB-funded community visioning projects in Joplin, MO, and Arkansas City, KS. In 2013, he founded Blackberry Pancake Press, through which he publishes self-initiated projects and collaborations. His research and creative work have been featured in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Signage and Wayfinding and at the Emily Harvey Foundation.

Before entering academia, Han worked as the signage maintenance technician-in-chief at Spa Castle in College Point, NY—one of the most visited upscale Korean-style spas in the greater New York area, alongside King Sauna in Palisades Park, NJ.

Huiwon Lim, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Graphic Design at Penn State University, possesses a robust academic foundation, with a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design, a Master of Arts in Environmental Graphic Design, and a graduate certificate in Human-Computer Interaction from Iowa State University.

His research centers on utilizing data visualization as an integral facet of graphic design, implementing it to foster community engagement, enhance user experience, improve human wellness, and promote sustainability awareness.

His interdisciplinary project secured recognition at the 2020 Next Work Environment Competition hosted by Work Design Magazine, highlighting his impactful contributions. Additionally, Lim was honored with the 2023 College of Arts and Architecture Sustainability Faculty Award at Penn State in acknowledgment of his significant contributions.

He actively engages in various professional organizations, including the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), the Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD), the University and College Design Association (UCDA), and the Data Visualization Society (DVS).

Kellyn is a Brooklyn-based designer with a background in editorial design and publishing. As a member of Àrokò Cooperative, They help support the design of the group’s published materials. Their current explorations in design expand into physical space, conceptualizing spatial design solutions that enable communities to co-create and learn in engaging, sustainable, and nurturing ways.

Kellyn believes that design has the potential to heal, unite, and cultivate individuals, communities, and environments. To them, it is essential that their work develops and upholds restorative and eco-centric practices as our collective need to find new ways to bring our built environment into harmony with nature becomes increasingly urgent. They hope to continue exploring how design can be used to enhance the human experience of play and creation as a means of generating restorative and equitable communities and environments, and providing communities with active spaces to work together towards creating equitable solutions for systemic issues.

2025 SEGD Academic Summit Registration

Register for the virtual SEGD Academic Summit, on Tuesday, June 17 and Wednesday, June 18, 2025.

If you are registering multiple attendees please be sure to enter all attendee information during the registration process.

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Event Details

Speakers

Joell Angel-Chumbley

Lisa K. Bambach

Vivian Natalia Combariza Mejía

Steven Coward

Seojoo Han

Huiwon Lim

Sarah Miorelli

Kellyn Nettles

Tickets

2025 SEGD Academic Summit Registration

Community

Connect with 86 people attending this event

Sponsors and Partners

SEGD

Contact us

2025 SEGD Academic Summit

Event Details

Speakers

Joell Angel-Chumbley

Lisa K. Bambach

Vivian Natalia Combariza Mejía

Steven Coward

Seojoo Han

Huiwon Lim

Sarah Miorelli

Kellyn Nettles

Tickets

2025 SEGD Academic Summit Registration

Community

Connect with 86 people attending this event

Sponsors and Partners

Organizer