Staff + Boards

Who are we? Designers and makers and accountants and innovators and educators and business leaders and artists and investors and students and lawyers and the list goes on… 

Our staff is small but mighty. Team members include:

Tanner Woodford, Founder & Executive Director
Kevin Reader, Executive Director of Programming & Operations
Juan Pablo Neira-Solano, Development Manager
Haoyu Lu, Project Manager
Lauren Boegen, Executive Director of Collections
Amira Hegazy, Curator of Letters Beyond Form

The Design Museum is governed by the Board of Directors and supported by a growing Auxiliary Board.

Board of Directors

Chair: Wendy Manning, Demeter Strategy Design
Vice Chair: Rana Komar, Independent Contractor
Ex-Officio Chair: Bill Beach, Independent Futures Trader, CBOE
Secretary: Andrea Kramer, ASKramer Law
Treasurer: Ruth Goran, Ruth Goran CPA

Charles Adler, Kickstarter & Center for Lost Arts
Duke Alden, Alight Solutions
Helyn Goldenberg, Sotheby’s
Todd Heiser, Gensler
Jamie Koval, Substance 
Sam Landers, Trope
Rob McKay, Connect Gallery & The Silver Room
Irv Michaels, Michaels Consulting Ltd.
Jim Misener, 50,000feet
Kate Neisser, Independent Writer & Editor
Bud Rodecker, Span
Arlene Semel, Semel-Snow
Eugene Varnado II, YoojDesign
Tanner Woodford, Design Museum of Chicago
Richard Wright, Wright

Auxiliary Board

Sarah Haque, SZH Consulting, Co-Chair
Ashley Lukasik, Murmur Ring, Co-Chair

Deaa Bataineh, IIT Institute of Design, Member
Laura Sofia Cardozo, Breakout, Member
Marlene Paez Dukes, People's Action Institute, Member
Alexandria Eregbu, FINDING IJEOMA, Member
Mejay Gula, Site Design Group, Inaugural Member
Amanda Harth, Monday Coffee, Member
Sharlene King, Salesforce, Member
Justin Redding, UJAMAA Construction, Member
Chris Rudd, ChiByDesign, Member

Jon Veal, alt Space Chicago, Emeritus Member

Our Story

Formerly the Chicago Design Museum, the organization was founded in 2012 as an entirely volunteer-run organization that planned and executed pop-up exhibitions. In 2014, after two years of successful itinerant programming, more than 500 backers supported a Kickstarter campaign to provide funding for the museum to operate year-round. Beginning with a single staff member, the museum now mounts at least 2 exhibitions per year, has hosted hundreds of public programs, and engaged with more than 175,000 visitors. 

We make our best effort to keep all programming free or low-cost. Each exhibition is uniquely designed in concert with the exhibition themes, and the gallery space undergoes a complete transformation for each show. From undulating MDF “hills” for a show on Chicago’s bicycle culture to a behind-the-scenes environment for a show on design in theatre, the exhibition design always responds to and supports its content in a unique way. As a result, visitors are greeted with a new, unexpected experience every visit, and are inspired to see the exceptional within the simple. The museum is committed to creative solutions that elevate humble materials.

Organizational Information

990s: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018

Land Acknowledgement

The Design Museum of Chicago is located on the traditional Territories of the Three Fire Peoples, the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Bodewadmi, though dozens of other Native tribes historically used this area for gathering, healing, and trade.

This land was forcibly purchased after more than two years of open warfare that built on decades of violent encroachment, and after the defeat of a pan-Indian movement to keep settlers out of the Great Lakes region at the Treaty of Chicago in 1821. Today, Illinois is still home to more than 75,000 tribal members, including Ho-Chunk, Miami, Inoka, Menominee, Sac, Fox, and their descendants. Chicagoland, specifically and proudly, hosts one of the largest and most diverse urban Native communities in the U.S.

We recognize that Indigenous peoples — who lived here long before Chicago was a city and are still thriving here to this day — are the rightful and traditional stewards of this land. Operating within this context, we strive to create scholarship and programs that right the historic wrongs of state violence and colonization, and better support the struggles of our Indigenous community members as they continue to fight for sovereignty and self-determination.

For more information about settler colonial history focused on Chicagou/Chicago, visit the Settler Colonial City Project. To see a map of Native lands and learn more about the history of colonialism, Indigenous ways of knowing, and settler-Indigenous relations, visit Native Land.

Non-discrimination policy

The Design Museum of Chicago does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status, in any of its activities or operations.

The Design Museum of Chicago holds the GuideStar Gold Seal of Transparency. You can view our full profile here.

 Contact Us

Gallery & mailing address:
72 E Randolph St, Chicago, IL 60601

Phone number:
1-312-894-6263

General inquiries:
info@designchicago.org