Prof. Archana Shekara

Prof. Archana Shekara is a graphic designer, researcher, creative director, and educator. She is a Professor of Graphic Design and the Harold Gregor Endowed Professor of Art, co-director of Ethnic Studies Program, and Creative Director of Design Streak Studio, a research-based social innovation lab focusing on human-centered service design at Illinois State University, USA.

Shekara has close to three decades of professional experience designing for diverse industry clients. She uses design as a tool to build cross-cultural understanding, acceptance, and respect. As a socio-cultural researcher, she investigates her transnational identity as an Indian American by understanding racial equity and decoloniality through a brown cultural lens and creates. critical awareness using ethnographic narratives. Her medium for creative expression takes on various forms, such as type design, curating immersive participatory experiences, and interactive installations using mixed and various emerging digital media, which evoke multi-sensory responses.

Prof. Pouya Jahanshahi

Prof. Pouya Jahanshahi is an Iranian-born graphic designer, scholar, and curator, currently an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Oklahoma State University, an endowed professor at the Global Studies, and the director of the MFA program.

He is the co-founder of Pasaj Collaborative and Local-Not-Local art and design collaboratives. As a design activist, his curated 20x20 Posters for Peace collection is now being exhibited across the globe, disseminating the message of peace. While working with a broad range of cultural organizations and clientele. When time permits, he pursues his hobbies of Persian calligraphy, silk screening, and concrete poetry.