Mariana Amatullo, PhD Vice Provost and Academic Dean for Continuing and Professional Education Mariana Amatullo is an associate professor of strategic design and management at Parsons. In her role as vice provost and academic dean, she is responsible for the academic programming of the university’s Continuing and Professional Education division. Amatullo is an experienced strategist and practitioner-scholar and an award-winning educator. Her research and teaching bridge the disciplines of art and design education and management, with a focus on design as a cognitive approach to organizational learning. Amatullo is the honorary president of the Cumulus Association and serves on the board of Aalto University. She holds a PhD in Management (Designing Sustainable Systems) from Case Western Reserve University, an MA in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of Southern California, and a Licence en Lettres from Sorbonne University. Read more
Jen van der Meer Assistant Professor of Strategic Design and Management, Parsons School of Design; Co-Director, Impact Entrepreneurship Initiative, The New School; Founder, Reason Street Jen van der Meer is a business model designer who joined The New School’s full-time faculty in the School of Design Strategies at Parsons School of Design in 2015. In addition to teaching, she co-directs the Impact Entrepreneurship Initiative, a university-wide program aimed at cultivating the development of entrepreneurial skills, growth mindsets, and inclusive design approaches to actualize innovation in the world. Van der Meer practices her craft at Reason Street, a strategic design consultancy that leads clients through business model transformations toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations. Before joining The New School, van der Meer served on the board of Designers Accord, a global sustainable design alliance. A former Wall Street analyst and economist, she held executive leadership roles at Organic and frog design before starting a series of successful ventures, both for-profit and not-for-profit. She is an advisor to multiple start-ups in the health and climate technology fields and has served as a judge and mentor for numerous start-up and innovation competitions, including the Berkeley Big Ideas Open Data Challenge, Techstars, and Columbia University’s Lab2Market program. Van der Meer holds an MBA from the top-ranked HEC (Hautes Études Commerciale) in Paris and a BA in Comparative Religion from Trinity College. Read more