Design Futures 2026!
The 2026 Design Futures Forum will be an in-person five-day, interdisciplinary leadership development convening in Detroit, Michigan from June 1st - 5th. Hosted by University of Detroit Mercy, we will bring together 70+ student leaders from across the nation representing design programs from leading academic institutions and over 25 academic and practitioner faculty from private and non-profit based practices.
Registration is through the University Consortium. Individual registration may be available.
If you are a university representative, faculty or staff and would like to participate in the Consortium, please contact designfuturesforum@gmail.com
Ezra Kong (they/them)
Executive Director
Ezra is a facilitator and strategist for design justice in the built environment. Prior to Design Futures, they co-founded the equity design firm Reflex Design Collective, where they facilitated projects ranging from designing short term solutions to homelessness in West Oakland with unhoused residents to expanding transit in Northern California with low income communities of color. In addition to their role at Design Futures, Ezra currently provides design services to support QTBIPOC land stewardship projects in California and the US South. Ezra is based in Oakland, California on Ohlone land.
Barbara Brown Wilson
Dan Etheridge
Rajan Hoyle
Theresa Hyuna Hwang
Shalini Agrawal (she/her)
Shalini Agrawal (she/her) is an Associate Professor at the California College of the Arts in Critical Ethnic Studies, Individualized, and Interdisciplinary Studios. Drawing from her extensive career in and community engaged design, she created equity-focused, anti-racist training for architects and designers as founder and principal of Public Design for Equity, and Co-Director of Pathways to Equity. She is a Visiting Professor of Practice in Planning at University of Oregon, and core organizer of CCA’s Decolonial School and Dark Matter U.
Carlos Cepeda Gómez (He/They)
Carlos Cepeda Gómez is a Design Futures 2024 Alumnus and a graduate from the school of architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. Originally from Venezuela and having lived in the United States over the last decade. They are interested in informal housing, geo-centric design, and liminal urban spaces.
Gabby Coleman (she/her)
Gabby Coleman is an interdisciplinary designer, planner, and artist. As an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Louisiana Tech University, she teaches architectural design studios and seminars on community engagement and participatory design. Her research engages with spatial issues at multiple scales, investigating topics of urban justice like placemaking, informal social networks, and community resilience. Gabby holds a Master of Architecture degree from Kansas State University and a Master of Science in Urban Planning from Columbia University. Storytelling and participatory research fuel her design approach.
Jose Cotto (he/him)
Jose Cotto is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and educator whose creative practice explores relationships between people, place, and time – often integrating poetry, design, mark-making, and lens-based media. He has a Masters of Architecture from Tulane University and BFA in Design + Architecture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is currently the Director of Community Engagement + Design Justice at Utile in Boston. Cotto is a Salzburg Global Seminar Cultural Innovators Fellow (2018) and was an Artist In Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center (2022) and A Studio in the Woods (2022, 2024).
Alissa Ujie Diamond (she/her)
Alissa Ujie Diamond holds a B.S. in Architecture, an MLA, and a PhD in the Constructed Environment, all from University of Virginia. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning. Her work focuses on histories of spatialized inequity and action-research as a basis for systems change in the contemporary world. As an interdisciplinary scholar, she draws on an early career in applied architectural and landscape design as well as scholarly frameworks from environmental history, geography, plant humanities, urban planning, and ethnic studies.
Jess Garz (she/her)
Jess’s primary goal is to support groups to create policies, practices and cultures that take an active position towards social and racial justice. As the founder and director of RAE Consulting, Jess’s practice is inspired by a decade of work as a grantmaker, training in architecture and urban planning, and a community of brilliant colleagues, artists, friends and family. After decades of moving around, Jess lives in the neighborhood where she was born and raised in Philadelphia
Liz Kramer (she/her)
Liz works with people working for the public good to design meaningful, engaging, human-centered change. She co-leads Public Design Bureau, a St. Louis-based organization that works across sectors, centering the voices of those most directly impacted and historically excluded in decision-making in the design of new products, services, experiences, and more. She previously led the Office for Socially Engaged Practice at the Sam Fox School at Washington University, and teaches design thinking, creativity, and empathy.
Marc Norman
Sue Mobley
Elgin Cleckley
Christine Gaspar
Liz Ogbu
Sarah Wu