Romi Mikulinsky is the head of the Master of Design (MDes) program in Industrial Design and a senior lecturer at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. Her dissertation at the University of Toronto's English dept. was dedicated to photography, memory, and trauma in literature and film.
Dr. Mikulinsky researches and lectures about digital and counter-culture, algorithmic art, as well as design-led innovation. She has worked with various start-up companies and media websites, corporations and municipalities on the implementation of technological innovation across the organization. She served as the Director of The Shpilman Institute for Photography and worked with various art museums in Israel.
Sarah Auslander is the design expert on "Hazira" - a joint initiative of Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Ministry of Interior, Peres Center for Peace and Innovation that establishes innovation teams in local government and regional clusters across the country, who learn innovative processes and implement bold ideas that improve the lives of residents. Previously the design expert on the Tel Aviv innovation team, Sarah has worked as a design researcher and a service designer with companies in the private and public sector. Sarah is also a senior lecturer in Master's Degree in Industrial Design at Bezalel, teaching service design for social innovation. Her academic research focuses on designing with and to empower communities.
Multidisciplinary designer, researcher and lecturer with an independent studio specializing in product design.
Lecturer in the Master’s program in Industrial Design, the Bachelor's degree in Industrial Design and the Bachelor's degree in Material Culture.
Maya graduated Cum Laude(M.des) in social design from Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands and (B.des) Industrial Design from Shankar.
As part of her studio, she works in and around product design for companies, industry, foundations, cultural institutions and ventures including the Hebrew University, the Wolf Foundation, and Keter Group. At the same time, she strives to develop personal research and collaborative work that explore how technology mechanisms like 3D scan and 3D printing transform contemporary cultural and social narratives and redefine our relationship with nature. In this context, her works have been exhibited in a variety of exhibitions, including "First Body. Second Nature" at the Israeli Art and Design Biennial at the Israel Museum 2020, "Extreme" at the Holon Design Museum 2020, "The Reservation" Jerusalem Design Week 2019, "Cloud Points" at the Manofim Festival 2019 and "Natural Technology" at Benyamini contemporary ceramics center 2018.
Noam Dover (b. 1975) questions the traditional boundaries between design, crafts and production; addresses the cultural origins of materials and techniques; and creates objects that tell the story of their making.
Originating from industrial design, Noam’s work has shifted to hands-on craft, specialising in glass and ceramics. A keen open source technology maker and fascinated by craft history, Noam is looking for ways to create a synergy between traditional craft and digital fabrication. He sees his work as part of a chronology of craft knowledge, where today’s digital developments present new opportunities to the craft community, through open sourcing and an innovative approach. He is developing ceramic and glass 3D printers, tailored for a studio environment.
Received an MFA in Craft! Ceramics and Glass department, Konstfack University of Art, Craft and Design, Stockholm, Sweden. B.Des. in Industrial design from Bezalel.
He has exhibited worldwide, including Design/Miami, Milan’s design fair and London’s design festival. His work has won numerous prizes and is included in the collection of Holon Design Museum (IL) and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Nina Farkache is an independent Design Research, Design Thinking and service design specialist with 20 years of professional experience in versatile fields and industries.
She leads and conducts design research/User research and trend research for product, service and strategy development, and helps companies align their products and services with users' needs & trends.
In addition she works with organizations and companies on implementing Design Thinking culture to reach innovation.
Nina brings industrial design expertise earned in the Netherlands, where she lived and worked over 10 years. During this time she was an independent designer and innovation consultant for leading companies such as Heineken, Fiat, Leo Burnett and Droog Design.
Inspired by her work at IDEO California, for the last 15 years Nina has focused on Human Centered Research and Design Thinking.
She is a lecturer of "Design Thinking" and "Design Research" at Master's Degree in Industrial Design in Bezalel, and at the M.Des design program at the Technion in the faculty of architecture and town planning.
Recent clients:
Allegro AI, TytoCare, Aman Digital, Menora Mivtachim. Deliveroo, HP Indigo, Poenicia, Wix, Strauss Water, Kornit Digital, Tiny-Love, Nestle, Mazor Robotics
Dov Ganchrow (born 1970, USA) is a product designer and professor in the Industrial Design Department (B.Des. and M.Des. programs) from which he graduated with excellence in 1993.
His interests include all things fringe in both the human constructed and in the naturally occurring, alternative music, edged tools, martial arts and high altitude trekking. These also form the foundation of contemplation of the Anthropocene as well as our individual identity residing between nature and nurture.
Currently an independent designer, for over a decade and a half he worked together with prof. Ami Drach (1963-2012) on diverse design projects spanning the fields of medical, consumer, furniture, and museum exhibit design alongside the creation of more personal, experimental and conceptual works.
His works and joint studio creations have been shown extensively (e.g., MOMA - the Museum of Modern Art NY; MAD - the Museum of Art and Design NY; Pompidou Center Paris; the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Design Museum NY; Red Dot Museum Essen; Bozar Center for Fine Arts Brussels) and are in private and museum collections (e.g., Pompidou Center Paris; MAD - Museum of Art and Design NY; the Jewish Museum NY; MUDAC Design Museum Switzerland; Israel Museum; Tel Aviv Museum of Art). These works are often characterized by intelligent use and manipulation of materials and technologies, the incorporation of readymades as well as humor.
Tal Mor Sinay is an independent designer, head of the ‘About Design’ track and lecturer at the M.Des Program of Industrial Design at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem and at the Industrial Design program and the Masters of Design Innovation and Technology at RMIT University, Melbourne Australia between 2016-2020. He is about to complete his PhD from RMIT researching informal commemorative practices. He uses Project based research methods (PBR) within the Industrial Design fields and is currently involved in research that looks at the intersection of design and primary school education. He holds a bachelor B.Des (magna cum laude) from 2006 and a master M.Des from 2009 at Bezalel academy.
Photo Gallery
Flower drying devices, 2013
Itay Ohaly is a designer whose work ranges from products, exhibitions and space design to commercial, experimental, and conceptual projects.
In his work, he examines new possibilities for interactions, collaborations and creation of new design language, with great focus on design processes and methods.
Ohaly won several awards, amongst the Ministry of culture Design awards 2015 and the Frame&Moooi award 2013. Currently, he is a lecturer at Bezalel and HIT (BA), he gives talks and workshops and participates in exhibitions around the world.
Ohaly graduated from the Contextual Design Master program of the Design Academy Eindhoven (NL) in 2011 and from the Industrial design department of HIT (IL) in 2007.
Dr. Elad Persov, Faculty, M.Des Industrial Design, and expert in sustainable design management, system design, sustainable development. In 2005 he founded the Design Management track in the M.Des Program and managed it through the first decade. He represented Bezalel at numerous research meetings across Europe and published papers at various peer-reviewed conferences and journals. His Ph.D. dissertation "Sustainable Design Management: Educating Designers as Roles Change" was conducted at Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Tel Aviv University, explored the interface between Higher Education and the design practice from a sustainability perspective. As a researcher, Elad participated in grant writing and research and management of DESURBS (FP7 2010-2015), CPUDP (COST 2014-2016), CLEVER (ERASMUS + 2015-2019), along with initiation of local industrial R&D collaborations. Throughout the years, Elad has promoted sustainability at Bezalel in partnership with lecturers and students by establishing the 'Bezalel Interdisciplinary Sustainable Design Group'. In 2020 he founded the Bezalel Center for Sustainable Development.
Rovner is a lecturer and researcher specializing in the history of design concepts, design in the information age, gender design and sustainable design. Her dissertation deals with the history of the concept of originality in the arts. Rovner wrote the Program for Matriculation Studies in the Ministry of Education, "Aspects in Design History" and served as the pedagogical leader of the program.
Rovner teaches descriptive research methodologies in design, including rhizomatic mind mapping as a tool for design thinking. She coined the poetic genre "Designed-Object Poetry" and has been editing the poetry section in the Cooladesign magazine.
Rinat Sherzer (Top 40 women Keynote Speakers of 2020 according to Real Leaders Magazine), is an interdisciplinary biotech engineer, service design strategist, social entrepreneur & educator, tackling complex social issues around equality, diversity and inclusion. She’s currently the head of Design Management and Innovation Track in M.Des in Industrial Design in Bezalel.
Rinat has over 15 years of experience working at the intersection of tech, Human Centered Design & social good. She’s the founder of Of Course Global, a social innovation design lab. Among their clients are: Capital One, Pfizer and the Swiss Government.
Rinat combines principles from biomimicry, Human Centered Design to create a cultural shift towards an egalitarian society (more in her TEDx Talk). She was chosen by the UN to speak in the UN Women Summit, March 2020 for Women's International Day.
She teaches at Parsons School of Design, NY and has previously taught and guest lectured in: Harvard, Columbia University, NYU, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Cooper Hewitt, School of Visual Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University, College for Creative studies and Universidad San Francisco de Quito .
Her latest project 'What Would The Egg Do?' is a series of initiatives:
an exhibition, education curriculum and business workshops all exploring how ‘nature-inspired solutions’ can lead to a healthier planet & human equality. The exhibition curated by Rinat is presented in the XReality Center of The New School and opened on Women’s International Day 2021 in partnership with the Israeli Consulate.
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What Would The Egg Do?
Dr. Yona Weitz is a field anthropologist (Ph.D), a Researcher and a Lecturer teaching in the undergraduate Department of Visual and Material Culture studies and in M.Des, the Graduate Industrial Design Programme in Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. Yona`s research, teaching and mentoring work in Bezalel focuses on human based research & toolkits for design, social design, design management and urban socio-spatial analysis for site planning.
Marine Zorea is a designer, researcher, and artist based in Israel and Japan. She currently examines multimodal interaction design as part of her PhD research at Kyoto Institute of Technology. Drawing upon research into the everyday experience, she applies participatory methodologies to create objects that exist symbiotically in the world. She has collaborated with Japanese manufacturers and design consultancies and shown her work and research in Japan and abroad. She holds a BA in psychology (Tel Aviv University), and an MSc in product design (Kyoto Institute of Technology).