Designing Safe Spaces: Lightning Talks to Spark Ideas, Conversation, and Change

Alla Weinberg is a work relationship expert helping companies build loving leaders, trusting teams and cultures of safety through training, coaching, and facilitation.

A culture-enthusiast who loves getting immersed in the community, Kelly is a senior service designer at CFA who enjoys taking on new challenges with a multifaceted approach. Her focus on inclusive and accessible practices helps to guide her design processes in order to better address underserved needs. She strives to ensure there are equitable considerations at every point throughout the journey through raising the question not only during research, but at the design table: ‘Who are we missing?’.

I’m Michael — a full-time father of six (ages 10, 8, 6, 4 and 1 year-old twins…)! On the side… I am an award-winning experience & equity designer committed to the life, love, and liberation of everyday Black and Brown people and minoritized ethnic communities. I am passionate about crafting experiences that serve the most vulnerable, marginalized and historically excluded populations. My unlikely journey as a designer in D&I spaces over the past decade led me to Capital One where I lead the Equity by Design portfolio, focusing on evolving the company’s design practice and culture to produce more equitable outcomes in associate and customer experiences.

Dr. Jazz Walker is a researcher and DEI strategist focused on the intersections of media, culture, and society. The early days of her career began in the fashion industry, where she spent 10-years in various marketing and public relations roles. After years of dealing with the lack of diversity in the fashion industry, Jazz went back to school to earn her Ph.D in Communications, Culture, and Media Studies from Howard University, where she studied the real-world implications of how marketing, race and influencer culture intersect. Dr. Jazz currently works as a UX Researcher at Twitter and continues to consult and adjunct, teaching Communications and UX Design courses.

Eva PenzeyMoog is a principal designer at 8th Light and the author of Design for Safety. Before joining the tech field she worked in the non-profit space and volunteered as a domestic violence educator and rape crisis counselor. At 8th Light she specializes in user experience design as well as education and consulting in the realm of digital safety design. Her work brings together her expertise in domestic violence and technology, helping technologists understand how their creations facilitate interpersonal harm and how to prevent it through intentionally prioritizing the most vulnerable users.

Phim Her splits her time between being the founder of HAWJ Studio, a multidisciplinary design, strategy and coaching studio, and doing business development strategy with Friendly Design Co. She was formally a senior product marketing manager at The Washington Post and a senior designer at POLITICO. When she is not writing and designing, she is leading workshops, coaching and connecting creatives in the DC scene. She also recently launched Phim’s Chats, a live conversation series featuring introspective interviews with creative leaders, and Room for Us, a community-driven initiative.

Kouddous is the Founder and Creative Director of Radical Empathy, an art production startup charged with co-creating transformative experiences to vitalize community belonging. Focusing on unconventional spaces across the city, his launch production this summer targets 20 utility box murals in his residential neighborhood Logan Circle, assembling 15 local DMV artists and three community non-profits. Last year, he organized 23 plywood murals amidst social demonstrations. Born and raised in Egypt, Kouddous believes in transforming space into place with diversity of personality and hyper-local harmony of neighborhood and workhood. While his work currently focuses on public design, his conviction is rooted in feature films as his ultimate goal.

Kate Currie is a Senior Interior Project Designer and Associate at Perkins and Will in Washington, DC. She has experience in each phase of the design process, from visioning and programming to contract documentation and construction administration. Her award-winning portfolio spans a wide range of corporate, healthcare, government, and hospitality interiors projects.

In her role as CEO, Naseema Shafi works to implement the strategic vision, goals and initiatives of the Board of Directors. She leads and supports the growth and oversight of the health center with a focus on the provision of high-quality, affirming care that centers the community and maintains the vitality of Whitman-Walker. Prior to her current role, Shafi served as both the Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer for Whitman-Walker as well as its Director of Compliance, overseeing various matters related to corporate compliance and risk management. Shafi joined Whitman-Walker in 2007. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, College Park and her law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law. She is a member of the Maryland State Bar. In 2016, Shafi was honored as a Minority Business Leader by The Washington Business Journal.