Speakers

John Edmark

John’s art and design pursuits range from nature-inspired cellular and kinetic works to products for storage, kitchen, and creative play. Videos of his artwork have received over 60 million views online.
Much of his work celebrates the patterns underlying space and growth. Through kinetic sculptures and transformable objects, he strive to give viewers access to the surprising structures hidden within apparently amorphous space.
John is a lecturer at Stanford University, where he teaches classes in design fundamentals, product design, stop-motion animation, and color theory. Previous to focusing on design, he spent a number of years researching virtual environments at Bell Laboratories.

Website

Here’s a video from NPR’s Science Friday about John’s work:

Sheri Sheppard

Sheri Sheppard teaches both undergraduate and graduate design-related classes, and conducts research on fracture mechanics and applied finite element analysis, and on how people become engineers. From 1999-2008 she served as a Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, leading the Foundation’s engineering study. In addition to publishing technical papers, reports, and textbooks, she has led or co-led several large, multi-institutional projects to build new educational research programs and related resources, such as the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE), The National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter), and a program on summer research experiences for high school teachers. Her industry experience includes engineering positions at Detroit’s “Big Three” — Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corporation, and Chrysler Corporation. She earned her bachelors degree from the University of Wisconsin, and her PhD at the University of Michigan. At Stanford she has served a chair of the faculty senate, as associate vice provost for graduate education, and is the longtime faculty founder of and adviser to the graduate student group MEwomen. Her work has been recognized with numerous honors and awards, including the Walter J. Gores Award, Stanford University’s highest award for excellence in teaching and the Chester F. Carlson and Ralph Coats Roe Awards of the American Society for Engineering Education in recognition of distinguished accomplishment in engineering education, and for outstanding teaching and notable contributions to the mechanical engineering profession.

Designing Education Lab

Kate Sofis


CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, SFMADE
Kate is the co-founder and CEO of SFMade, an internationally recognized public-private partnership launched in 2010 that has helped catalyze a resurgence in local manufacturing in one of the most prosperous yet economically divided and expensive regions in the world: the San Francisco Bay Area.
Kate is also co-founder of the Urban Manufacturing Alliance, a collaboration of more than 150 North American cities, all working to connect major urban centers to each other and promoting the replication of successful urban manufacturing models across cities.
Internationally, Kate has participated in manufacturing-based economic development projects in London, Berlin, Goteborg and Algeria. She has been a featured speaker at South by Southwest, CityLab, the Clinton Global Initiative, Techonomy, and the US Conference of Mayors on the topic of manufacturing, urban economic development, the intersection of cities, work, and shared economic prosperity.
Kate has been recognized twice as a Most Influential Woman by the San Francisco Business Times and recently was awarded the prestigious Irvine Foundation Leadership Award for her work.
Sofis holds an M.S. in City Design and Social Policy from the London School of Economics and an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University.

SFMade

Ryan Spurlock


Founder and Executive Director, Humanmade
Ryan Spurlock is the Founder and Executive Director of Humanmade, a non-profit community-based training, manufacturing, and prototyping studio on a mission to democratize access to the tools of innovation to individuals from all walks of life. Formerly the General Manager of TechShop San Francisco, Ryan assisted thousands of members as the Maker, and DIY’er movement started to thrive. Ryan guided TechShop San Francisco’s product management, product development, and business development programs, while also nurturing an environment that celebrated a competitive market edge through innovation, community, and teamwork. As a long-time contributor and supporter of the maker movement, Ryan is passionate about growing the movement into a more diverse, inclusive, and sustainable community, while also enabling individuals to use the tools of the modern maker economy to gain the skills needed to fill essential manufacturing jobs in the Bay Area.