Board of Directors Biographies
Jorge Arango
Panama City, Panama
Jorge is an information architect and web designer from Central America. In 1995 he founded BootStudio, one of the first web consultancies in his part of the world. He’s led web development teams in his home country of Panama, as well as the US and the UK. Jorge is also the managing editor of Boxes and Arrows, an online journal devoted to the practice, innovation and discussion of design.
For more about Jorge, please visit www.jarango.com.
Christian Crumlish
Oakland, California, USA
Christian Crumlish has been developing and writing about shared information spaces since 1994. He is the curator of the Yahoo! design pattern library. He is the author of, most recently, The Power of Many: How the Living Web is Transforming Politics, Business, and Everday Life (Wiley, 2004). He is currently co-authoring a book for O'Reilly Media on social design patterns.
Christian is most intrigued these days by the challenges inherent in emerging interfaces and the design of social experiences.
For more on Christian, see http://christiancrumlish.com.
Livia Labate
Livia has been designing shared information systems my entire professional life. I consulted for small, medium and large enterprises across several countries for several years, where she learned that observation and adaptability are IA’s best friends. As the owner of her own business, she learned how to apply IA to business situations as successfully as to design problems. Finally, as the one responsible for developing the practice inside a large organization, she's learned that competence, self-confidence and bravery take you very far, but it’s in caring for and understanding the goals, interests and needs of others that you deliver meaningful results.
She was lucky to come across the IA community and subsequently the IA Institute, where she jumped to the opportunity to participate in the Translations Initiative, Mentoring Initiative and as a member of the Board of Directors in 2003-2005. She has also been part of the organizing committee for the IA Summit for the past 5 years where she's been involved with pre-conference seminars, organizing Bird-of-a-Feather sessions and more recently, the very successful Wall of Deliverables.
The quality and energy of the IA community was a key influencer in her decision to pursue Information Architecture as a career. More than a professional relationship, it’s in the IA community that she connects with people with like minds and interests, and continues to expand her horizons and contribute to something bigger than herself.
For more on Livia, see livlab.com.
Andrew Hinton
For 18 years now Andrew has worked as a designer, instructor, writer or consultant of various stripes. But he didn't discover the nascent IA community until 1999, and it was a revelation: people figuring out what happens "between the pages" of the Web, and who understood that a new kind of space needed a new kind of architecture. Since then, he's been fortunate to continue being a part of the community, and seeing IA mature and grow as a community of practice.
In the past, his clients have been small and large, including Fortune 500s such as American Express, Shaw, Wachovia and Kimberly-Clark. For the past 5 years, his day job has been as a Senior IA in Vanguard's User Experience Group.
From my pre-Web education, Andrew holds a BA in Philosophy, an MA in Literature and an MFA in Writing. He is a regular speaker at conferences like the IA Summit, and sometimes writes for publications like Boxes & Arrows. His current obsessions include Communities of Practice, social design factors, what games teach us about design, and the meaning of context in digital spaces.
As a co-founder of the Institute, Andrew was honored to serve on the 2008 IAI Board of Advisors. You can find out more via his home on the Web at inkblurt.com.
Stacy Surla
McLean, Virginia, USA
Stacy is focused on strengthening the organizational infrastructure of the IAI so it can support bold initiatives, like the development of Local Groups across the world. She is a co-founder of the DCIA local group in Washington, DC, edits the IA Column in the ASIS&T Bulletin, served as chair for the 2005 Information Architecture Summit, co-founded the Rosebud independent film and video festival, managed fundraising for the DC Arts Center, co-chaired the Foundation for Mid-East Communication, served as briefing leader for the Hunger
Project, started a crimewatchers program in Haight-Asbury, and organized a neighborhood circus. She has made numerous public speaking, TV, and radio appearances on topics ranging from arts programming to Y2K readiness.
Stacy is a Senior IA at Ironworks Consulting (http://www.ironworks.com).
Russ Unger
Russ has been working on websites since 1993—when there was only Notepad to code with and Mosaic was the only browser around. That was when he found that his interest in User Experience Design and Information Architecture began to flourish.
Since then, he has worked with a number of major brands on large-scale Intranet and Extranet applications. He has also worked off-line, creating unique biometric (fingerprint reader) applications and have been responsible for creating user interfaces for mobile. He has also taught courses in Web and Interactive/Flash Design.
Russ has been active in our community as an editor for Boxes and Arrows and have recently explored the role of author. In addition, he is currently co-authoring a book on User Experience Design with Carolyn Chandler for Peachpit Press.
Russ is a mentor for the IAI and has worked with several mentees to assist them in their careers. This experience has allowed him to revisit and renew my appreciation for people who are just starting out in their careers and what we, as an organization, can do to further support them.
Russ was the Event Coordinator for the 2008 IDEA Conference. He has actively pursued and landed several sponsors for the conference through my personal contacts. He assisted in identifying various speakers and have encouraged many to become speakers. He supported the effort for many months and have learned a great deal about the Information Architecture Institute and conference planning and marketing.
For more on Russ, visit userglue.com.
This page was last modified on January 18, 2009 09:10 PM.