Moura Quayle is the leader of the d.studio initative. She is a Professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business who not only teaches the undergraduate d.studio class, but is also joining the MBA core professors to help integrate the concept of design thinking. Moura’s interests lie in the collaborative space occupied by academia, government and business; this is the place of future opportunity and transformation. Now at the UBC Sauder School of Business, Moura’s recent experiences include leadership of the B.C. Pacific Coast Collaborative Commission, B.C. Deputy Minister of Advanced Education, Research and Innovation, Dean of UBC’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems, and Associate VP, UBC Okanagan Programs. Moura chaired Vancouver’s Urban Landscape Task Force resulting in the city’s Greenways program. She has been awarded a YMCA Woman of Distinction and an honourary Doctor of Science.
Ronald Kellett is a Professor of Landscape Architecture who has spent hours with Moura molding the d.studio class into its interactive, engaging format. He holds degrees in environmental studies and architecture. He has practiced and taught architecture in British Columbia and Oregon. Since the 1990s, his work has focused on issues of environmental quality and urban form as well as the development of related form-based decision support tools for urban design. His research, consulting and writing has influenced patterns of urban growth and development in several Canadian and US cities. It has also contributed to the adoption of ‘green’ urban design processes, plans, codes, standards, guidelines and prototypes. His work has won awards from the American Planning Association, the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects, the U.S. National Association of Home Builders and U.S. National Urban and Community Forest Advisory Council.
Denise Withers is one of the founding team members of the d.studio and a partner on the design thinking initiative. As a design strategist at the Sauder School of Business, Denise’s primary role is to lead initiatives that build design expertise and foster innovation. This includes learning design projects for the School’s degree programs and strategic design projects for external organizations across public, private and social sectors. Before joining Sauder, Denise ran her own business in media production and educational design for 20 years, specializing in story-based research and appreciative design. As an international award-winning documentary filmmaker, she has led projects on four continents in tough environments for a diverse clientele that includes: CIDA, IDRC, NASA, United Nations, David Suzuki Foundation, UBC, SFU, Nortel, DND, Natural Resources, Parks and Fisheries & Oceans Canada: as well as major media chains (Discovery Channel, CBC & CanWest national newspapers).
Andréanne Doyon is the d.studio’s fulltime Research Assistant. She has a MA in Urban Planning and a BA in Sociology and Asian Studies from UBC as well as her LEED GA accreditation. Later this year she will start her PhD at the University of Melbourne School of Design. Andréanne is interested in the interactions between humans and the environments that we create as well as cultural sustainability. The studio fits well with her interests in learning and teaching. She likes introducing people to different ways of thinking and new experiences. Beyond the academic setting, Andréanne used to ski race competitively, and has also coached and heli-skied.
Florin Gheorghe is the Teaching Assistant for the d.studio course. He is in the first year of a Masters in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, and juggles interests in healthcare innovation, creativity, and international development. In his BASc, also at UBC, Florin spent eight months in Ghana running a start-up, non-profit manufacturing company that connected dollar-a-day mechanics with multinational mining companies. Today, Florin spends most of his time (when not TA-ing) in scrubs and latex gloves, observing surgeons in their natural habitat, and trying to find disruptive solutions to health care challenges around the world.
Daniel Gipps is the Project Manager for the team. He is a fourth year Arts student at UBC majoring in Economics. Daniel’s wide range of academic interests most recently includes public policy, especially macroeconomic policy surrounding central banks. Daniel enjoys the challenge of taking what first appear simply as ideas and fleshing them out, estimating what it will take to get them done, and then getting them done. A random fact about Daniel outside the work setting is that he competed in the B.C. Summer Games in archery.
Shirley Ho is the first Communications Officer with the studio. She is covering website management, website branding, social media and event promotion. Shirley is a third year Science student majoring in Cognitive Systems in the Computational Intelligence & Design Stream. While a big part of her major involves learning about machine and human interaction, she is primarily interested in user interface design. Working with the studio fits well with Shirley’s interests in creating user friendly websites and graphic design. Her creative and technological skills merge outside the academic setting in a love for photography.
Veronique West is the second Communications Officer for the d.studio. She is writing, editing and publishing updates and articles for the studio’s website, producing copy for its communications products, and managing its social media presence and other related media. She is currently a first-year UBC student in the Arts One interdisciplinary program. She plans to major in Creative Writing with a particular focus on playwriting. In her spare time she writes online articles and helps assimilate archival data for Prism Literary Magazine, while developing an original play, Intrusion, for the 2012 Vancouver Fringe Festival. Her work with the d.studio allows her to hone and apply her professional writing and media skills while contributing to her school’s diverse ecology.
Andrew Young is the studio Coordinator. His tasks include logistics, scheduling, events and day-to-day communications. He is a fourth year Commerce student with a major in Marketing and Transportation and Logistics. Andrew’s interests lie in market research and management consulting. Andrew’s interests lie in market research and management consulting. Beyond this he is also interested in teaching, tennis, golf and hiking. He feels the Sauder Studio provides an opportunity to contribute to the learning experience of his peers and is a great way to lend his expertise to help operations run smoothly.
Joey Young is conducting research on students in the d.studio class. He is a Commerce Undergraduate Scholar working on research in behavioural economics. He is in his third year majoring in Finance. He studies finance because he enjoys the quantitative side of corporations and capital markets. He is also very interested in economics, particularly game theory and strategy. Working with the studio fits well with Joey’s interest in the way people think and behave. He will be completing field studies on how people make decisions in the context of the studio’s focus on design thinking. Outside academia, you might find Joey religiously following baseball scores.
