Kristen (they/them) is an experience designer who creates emotionally evocative, narrative-based experiences that connect and shift people’s perspectives of themselves and their world. Their work is deeply inspired by the concept of einfülung, the emotional knowing of a work of art from within, and they apply that ethos to inspire empathy and transformation in audiences.

Alex (he/him) is an experience designer, foodie, gardener, and all-in-all creative project lover who lives in the Hudson Valley. He has consulted on experience design projects with Google, Meow Wolf, and NASA. He also runs an annual creative residency in Italy called Residenza Lago Scuro, that focuses on regeneration, sustainability, and the magic that can happen when creative minds come together in a nourishing space.

Casey Selden (she/her) is a San Franciscan, an intentional community builder, and an unconventional educator who leverages unique environments to disrupt expectations and spark curiosity. She specializes in instigating social and emotional growth by shaping interpersonal dynamics and designing challenges that nurture self-confidence and compassion.

Amy Segreti (she/her) is a relational experience designer, writer and intimacy ceremonialist who focuses on connective, embodied, small-scale encounters. Through the weaving of guided itineraries, sensory exploration, skillful communication, and openness to the unknown, Amy helps people access new levels of intimacy and inner knowing. She comes from a background as a print journalist, group facilitator, and sex educator.

As an artist, Brian Rush (he/him) is mostly known for his “relational prosthetics,” objects that invite (usually awkward) encounters between two or more people. When he’s not working as a product designer in Portland, Oregon, these days he’s reimagining interpersonal engagement through pranks, hug rugs, cozy sci-fi, and experimental massage.

Anna (she/her) is a creative producer, experience designer and artist based in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. With a particular interest in site-responsive work. She has engaged audiences in chemical laboratory buildings, bathtubs in bookstores, community halls in regional towns, disused warehouses, libraries, theatres and galleries.

James Lopez (he/him) is a magician and minimalist immersive creator based in Denver, Colorado. James is the founder of The Exposure Project, an immersive theater company that explores minimalistic immersive experiences through magic, storytelling, technology, and sensorial experiences.

Lina (she/her) is a passionate driven designer, who stopped midway through a business career to pursue an inspiration, and turned it into a profession. Designing projects geared to facilitate inner transformation by evoking audience thoughts and feelings in experiential exhibitions, rides and immersive theatre.

Abbygaelle (she/her) is a jack-of-all-trades who spent most of her adult life travelling and doing odd jobs here and there, a fascination for the theatrical and for emergent rituals has followed her throughout. She has spent the last year helping in the first steps of an intentional community and cognitive science research center near Lisbon, Portugal, where she has made her first steps in designing immersive theatre events.‍

Chris (he/him) is an architect, experience designer and design strategist with a background in designing places for performance in real and virtual worlds. He organises Long Now London and teaches design at a couple of universities and feels self-conscious when writing about himself in the third person.

Sarah (she/her) is an educator, community builder and learning experience designer based in the Netherlands. She designs and implements learning philosophy and pedagogy for K-12 international schools, and is currently studying for a doctorate in education policy and practice.

Mira (she/her) is an Innovation Instigator and Learning Experience Catalyst at the University of Maryland, where she teaches how to build at low resolution, collaborate radically, let go of being experts and lean on others, and most of all, talk to each other in meaningful ways. In addition to teaching, she designs artifacts to communicate concepts and tools; partners with groups across campus to design new classes, curriculum, and workshops; and prototypes new ways to weave innovation into the cultural thread of the institutions she works in.

Maggi (she/her) is a dancer, dance teacher, choreographer from Norway with a BA in dance and pedagogy. She also has an MA in fine arts where she focused on immersive performances that focused on the poetics of space and movements.

Janae (she/her) is an artist, writer, and experience designer for magic makers and cycle breakers. She has a particular interest in finding the magic in the mundane and illuminating points of connection. Over the last decade Janae has helped community organizers across the globe improve their training experience.

David is an experience designer, event creator, community builder, and film/TV-maker, based in Toronto. He is co-founder of Planet Fabulon, an arts collective that uses live events (filled with costumes, interactive art, dancing, and live performance) as a medium for promoting greater connection, playfulness, and social change.

Jessica Schoolman is passionate about empathy, neuropsychology and promoting conscious acts of kindness as a lifestyle. Her work in the fields of clinical psychology, international volunteering and health education gives her a unique ability to create opportunities to learn about the brain, the self, and the vital differences between them.

Tyler Jones is the director of 1504, a narrative studio in Birmingham, Alabama that integrates strategic communications with the visual arts. As a filmmaker, Jones has led initiatives with the Equal Justice Initiative, Southern Foodways Alliance, and NPR. He believes the power of experiential storytelling fosters a more empathetic society.

Emily (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, dabbler, writer, community-engagement practitioner and English professor residing in Northern California (but know that she is a proud Philly native). Her artwork and teaching center on interconnectedness through designing immersive activities that tie various communities in reciprocal service bonds to one another. She is a sensory-input lover.

Kasaundra Couch (any/all pronouns) is a Bay Area-based playwright and director with an active interest in immersive and experiential work. After surviving the pandemic by slinging coffee and keeping sane by writing increasingly surreal scripts they are ready to take on the ultimate challenge: this stunningly talented cohort!

Yvette Hatton is a third of the way through her 150 year life. There was an adventurous, DIY culture in her family growing up that combined a love of art-making with deep curiosity about everything. She has created experiences as a product manager, mother, and sales rep. She directed Orpheus by Jean Cocteau at Barnard with an all-woman cast and launched digital experiences at a major bank. She looks forward to growing old and every minute of the journey there.

As an Information Designer, Hailey activates communities by sharing complex ideas in accessible ways. She leverages neuroscience and human-centered design to inform visual design solutions that provide communities with access to essential information (housing, health, and emergent responses). Her multi-faceted approach to social design is anchored in the principles of the Design Justice Network.

Tinkerer, Teacher, Maker, Technomancer, Jerome’s passion projects range from programming giant motion-sensing pseudo-holograms to secret internet-connected newspaper bins, to RFID-enabled immersive art exhibits. He is driven by a need to get past the “neat” factor of new and emerging technology, and instead, find ways to use technology to facilitate human-to-human connection.

Natalie lives in Hackney, East London and devises themed, cross-genre events. Co-founder of groundbreaking Field Day music festival, devisor of bespoke barter in The Good Food Swap: her “Village Mentality” approach has community exchange and creative health at its heart: freely blending tradition, performance and the domestic, with loads of nature; always!

Tracy is a scientist and artist who investigates complex interactions among organisms, be they microbial or human. Through This Yearning, she designs restorative experiences using multisensory stimuli (smell- and sound-scapes). As the Collaboration & Outreach Coordinator with the New York Genome Center, Tracy uses experience design to guide holistic science communication.

Emily Gill, MFA, is currently an Associate Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Theatre at the University of Montevallo in Alabama where she teaches design theory and costume design topics. Her interest in experiential design comes from a pre-graduate work career in freelance theatre in Atlanta as well as frequent participation in the Prague Quadrennial Festival, as well as a real love of challenging and creative theatrical experiences as a maker and audience member.

Christine (she/her) is an independent theatre-creator, audience experience crafter, and interactive and immersive comedy writer, teacher, and performer. She runs her indie theatre company smallmatters.ca out of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada located on Treaty 6 Lands. She is keen on using humour as a tool to create empathy.

Mel Bieler is a theatrical and event Production and Experience Designer dedicated to creating human-centered artistic experiences through storytelling, discovery, and interactive design. As an Event Designer, she’s designed and produced 600+ events and brand activations. As a multi-disciplinary theatre artist, Mel is a scenic, prop, and puppetry designer, visual playwright, and producer.

Margo Gray (she/they) is a creator of immersive work based in Minnesota, on the unceded land of the Dakota and Ojibwe. Their work focuses on building audience empathy. Margo’s current project is creating an interactive audio experience for a 135-mile bike trail through northern Minnesota’s Iron Range.

Victor Carinha helps organizations achieve their most impactful visions by designing, directing, & producing playable engagements that inspire and unite participants. Experimenting with narrative and audience agency, he strives to create work that impacts a participant’s creative and philosophical outlook and the way in which the experience becomes part of that individual’s personal folklore.