AI Summit 2025

Utkarsh Seth

Spanning more than 15 years in the user experience (UX) industry, Utkarsh Seth builds and scales UX teams who make demonstrable impacts on their products. Currently, he serves as senior staff UX manager for Android at Google, where his strategic vision, management, team-building, mentorship, and research informs product development in multiple domain areas like social, search, geo, ads, and Android. For nearly a decade, Utkarsh built a career at Google in user experience management and research roles. Prior to Google, he held UX research-based roles with Nordstrom and Microsoft as well as roles in interface design at Lenovo and Tata Consultancy Services.

Utkarsh has mentored students in user experience research at SCAD for nearly a decade and currently serves as a professional mentor in SCAD’s UXR degree program where he helps students bridge the gap between academia and history. Utkarsh earned an M.S. in human computer interaction from Iowa State University.

Dan Bartlett

Dean of the School of Animation and Motion at SCAD, Dan Bartlett incorporates emerging technologies into higher education curriculums in the fields of animation, motion media design, and visual effects. Including educational leadership roles at the University of the Arts London and South Essex College, Bartlett has led the development of innovative undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum, specifically graduate degrees in 3D computer animation, visual effects, and virtual reality.

At SCAD, Bartlett leads curriculum development and helped to launch the new virtual production facilities at Savannah Film Studios. A member of several organizations, including Immerse UK and the Association for Computing Machinery, his current research focuses on the impact of emergent technologies on cinematic design principles, visual development, and immersive narratives. Bartlett earned an M.A. in visual communication with a concentration in illustration from the University of Hertfordshire.

Luis Cataldi

A veteran of the computer graphics industry with 30 years of experience in the field, Luis Cataldi has thrived in various roles, including character artist and animator; CG artist, supervisor, and designer; character technical artist; art director; and more. His work has appeared on television and in music videos, theme park rides, video games, and animated feature films, such as Robots and Ice Age: The Meltdown. Former associate dean for academic services at SCAD Atlanta and department chair of the game development and interactive design degree program at SCAD Savannah, Cataldi also served as an Unreal Engine advocate, instructor, and community-builder for Epic Games in roles like director of education and learning resources, and later, as global education evangelist.

A dedicated educator who began teaching animation at the university level 25 years ago, Cataldi serves as academic advisor for Unreal Engine Education and earned a B.A. in media studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

SuAnne Fu

SuAnne Fu has more than 20 years of industry experience in immersive computing and user experience design. Now dean of the School of Creative Technology at SCAD, her service at the university spans decades and includes roles as chair of immersive reality, chair of interactive design and game development, and professor of interactive design and game development. For SCADpro, SCAD’s collaborative design studio, she has led projects with companies including Google, YouTube, Deloitte Digital, Samsung, and Gulfstream. Prior to SCAD, Fu worked as a web designer for Davanita Designs and Meetinghouse Technologies.

Fu has served on the Conference Organizing Committee for the 2021 Foundations of Digital Games and SIGGRAPH 2020 VR Theater Subcommittee, and acted as a 2021 ACM SIGGRAPH external reviewer and 2020 Webby Awards judge. She is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, and the Visual Effects Society. Fu earned an M.S. in computer graphics from Cornell University.

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Munkhtsetseg Nandigjav

Associate dean of the SCAD School of Animation and Motion, Munkhtsetseg Nandigjav has led the digital communication program as chair and associate chair, and previously taught at the university for five years. She has created designs to elevate the human experience as well as grow and nurture developing artists. Based on her background in computer graphics technology and animation, Nandigjav’s diverse experience ranges from art and design to 3D production pipeline and interactive spatial experience. Nandigjav has served with ACM SIGGRAPH in several capacities for more than a decade, most recently directing the computer animation festival for SIGGRAPH 2020 and chairing the conference for SIGGRAPH 2022. Before joining SCAD, she worked as a 3D designer, animator, and creative director on projects for clients including Crayola, Runic Games, GE Aviation, Brown Forman, and Samtec.

Renowned throughout the industry, Nandigjav has been invited to speak, present, and moderate at various conferences across the country, including the PCA/ACA National Conference, SIGGRAPH conferences, the Annual Dialogue on Diversity Conference, and the SCAD LEAD conference. Nandigjav earned her M.F.A. in animation at SCAD.

Nye Warburton

Chair of interactive design and game development at SCAD, Nye Warburton has been an animation technologist for more than two decades. A character animator, technical director, and previsualization supervisor with companies such as The Third Floor, Digital Domain, Electronic Arts, Fox Features, and Sony Pictures Imageworks, Warburton’s career spans animated television, national commercials, professional and independent game development, and more than 20 feature films. He has served as a game designer, animator, previsualization artist, and animation director and developer with startups; developed projects with Disney lmagineering, Pearson Education, Comedy Central, and Sony Television Games; and worked with medical professionals from the University of Southern California and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Cofounder and adviser at Box Rocket Studio, former head of production and chief operating officer of Aatma Studio, and previsualization lead and animator at Pixomondo, among many other substantive roles, Warburton’s animation includes work on the Oscar-nominated feature film, Monster House. He earned an M.F.A. in computer art from the Academy of Art University.

Kate Aronowitz

Kate Aronowitz has empowered teams at some of Silicon Valley’s most iconic companies. She leads Google Venture’s (GV) operations team and coaches GV portfolio companies on cross-functional design processes, scale, product development, and management strategy. Aronowitz has built world-class design teams at eBay, LinkedIn, Facebook (now Meta), and Wealthfront. She joined the first user experience team at eBay before joining LinkedIn, where she started the user research team. As Facebook’s first design executive, Aronowitz grew the organization from 20 to 200, establishing multidisciplinary design teams in front-end engineering, user research, content strategy, and communication design.

She serves as an adviser to the Fortune Brainstorm Design conference, was named to Fast Company’s list of the Most Influential Designers, selected as one of Ad Age’s Most Creative People, and served as a juror for the National Design Awards. Aronowitz earned a B.F.A. in graphic design from SCAD.

Fred Gilbert

As vice president and head of user experience at Google Workspace, Fred Gilbert has raised design standards across Google’s platforms, including Gmail, Chat, Docs, Maps, Photos, and more. Gilbert played an instrumental role in the mobile revolution, developing and leading the first-ever visual design and motion graphics teams dedicated to Google products. At Google for more than 15 years, Gilbert oversaw YouTube’s expansion into music, TV, gaming, VR, shopping, and other platforms. As senior director and head of user experience for YouTube before becoming vice president for the same division, Gilbert transformed the department and built a team of more than 300 creatives to launch YouTube’s first breakout experiences and the YouTube Premium subscription service.

Gilbert was one of the original designers behind Google Maps for Mobile as well as the first to acquire a design firm to bolster Google’s visual design capabilities. Through this acquisition, he built the first visual design and motion graphics teams for products and wrote the UX career path for both to flourish. Gilbert received an M.A. in interaction design from Carnegie Mellon University.

George Joblove

Digital visual effects pioneer and motion picture imaging consultant George Joblove has three decades of experience strategizing, managing, and developing technology in motion pictures and television. He serves as digital media technology adviser for Prima Lumina Consulting, was executive vice president of advanced technology at Sony Pictures Entertainment, and senior vice president and chief technology officer for Sony’s visual effects and animation unit, Imageworks. Joblove was responsible for managing technical infrastructure and its application to production at several visual effects studios, including Warner Bros., and co-founded and led the digital-effects department of the Industrial Light & Magic division of Lucasfilm Ltd.

Recipient of a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award, Joblove holds a patent in stereoscopic photography. A member of the American Society of Cinematographers, Joblove earned an M.S. in computer graphics from Cornell University.

Steve Johnson

Vice president of design for Netflix, Steve Johnson leads a multidisciplinary, Emmy Award-winning user experience organization focused on product innovation, brand, and the development of a personalized, global member experience. Prior to Netflix, Johnson served as the vice president of design and user research at LinkedIn where he led a multifaceted user experience team consisting of user researchers, product designers, brand designers, marketing and campaign designers, and front-end web developers to create a multiplatform experience model that transformed how LinkedIn members achieve their goals. A former head of design and user research at Adobe and a senior producer at Electronic Arts, Johnson is a previous Zendesk board member, current member of the Board of Directors for Kimoyo Insights, and holder of multiple patents related to image files and graphical interfaces.

Possessing an industry background that includes entertainment, gaming, social networking, and productivity software, Johnson specializes in designing globally inclusive, diverse, and innovative products and organizations. He holds an M.B.A. from the New York Institute of Technology.

Amy Lokey

As chief experience officer (CXO), and former senior vice president of product experience and head of global design at ServiceNow, Amy Lokey leads product experience and customer experience — including design, information strategy, product content, research, operations, and more. Before joining ServiceNow, Lokey was a vice president of user experience for Google G Suite and LinkedIn, growing the LinkedIn business and product platform from startup through IPO to one of the largest-ever tech company acquisitions. Her impressive prior experience spans website production and design for NBC’s The Tonight Show and Santa Monica College; art direction for Malibu Studios and Openwave Systems; and user experience design for Yahoo. At Yahoo, she redesigned the homepage, led product design, and e-signed the interaction experience and visual design for a wide variety of product concepts across multiple devices, including mobile, touch-screen, gesture interface, connected TV, and web.

Lokey’s background includes extensive hands-on digital product design for personalized, mass-market, high-traffic consumer, and enterprise products. She is a graduate of the mass communication and media studies program at the University of California, Berkeley.

Seth Piezas

Seth Piezas, an AI computing and ecosystems leader, began his career 25 years ago with Pixar Animation Studios as a technical director, producing lighting and shading for Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. After Pixar, Piezas founded Fluid Animation where he created and produced properties for television, including series for Adult Swim, and worked on national commercial campaigns for clients ranging from GMC to Target. Piezas served as lead engineer at Exo where he was the architect of a real-time, mobile ultrasound medical imaging application; as executive producer at Colabi where he developed technology for Lucasfilm’s xLAB in the virtual reality space; and as founder of Prezense, a mixed-reality consultancy, where he developed mobile augmented and virtual reality technologies and consulted for various unicorn startups, including Google.

Today, Piezas advances the next generation of cars that, utilizing real-time simulation and synthetic data generation, can perceive the world around them to operate safely, predictably, and autonomously. He is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Bob Weis

Bob Weis leads global entertainment for Gensler, where he collaborates with the firm’s global leaders to envision and create unique experiences for clients spanning the company’s 33 practice areas, including entertainment, lifestyle, hospitality, retail, sports, mixed-use, cultural institutions, wellness, and workplace. As former president of Walt Disney Imagineering, Weis has more than 30 years of leadership creating, designing, and developing some of Disney’s most iconic projects around the globe. During his time at Disney, he led more than 200 major projects around the world with a capital value of more than $30 billion. He has also consulted with major clients including Smithsonian, National Geographic, NASA, and the United States Navy, among others.

Weis has been recognized with numerous industry accolades and awards and remains closely connected to his Disney roots. The recipient of multiple honors from the Themed Entertainment Association, including Best New Theme Park for Shanghai Disney Resort and the Buzz Price Lifetime Achievement Award, Weis was awarded an honorary Ph.D. from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona’s College of Environmental Design, where he graduated with a degree in architecture.

Jason Fox

Chief academic officer Jason Fox leads the academic operations of the university, including all locations and teaching modalities. At SCAD, Fox taught graphic design and served as graduate coordinator. Prior to becoming chief academic officer, he served as senior vice president for academic services, associate vice president for academic services, and executive director for academic services, where he provided leadership, oversight, and management over essential aspects of the university, including classroom observation management, candidate research and assessment, SCADamp, and faculty recruitment and orientation. Fox also oversees academic operations in SCAD Lacoste and leads the university’s visual media and creative direction teams. Fox has received numerous awards, including the Air Force Heritage Museum Purchase Award and a SCAD Presidential Fellowship. As an active member in the local community, Fox has served on various boards and councils, such as the Memorial Children’s Hospital Board of Directors and the Lutheran Church Council.

Fox has worked for multiple companies as a professional medical illustrator, graphic designer, and consultant. He earned both his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts in graphic design from SCAD.

Erin O’Leary

Vice president for institutional effectiveness Erin O’Leary provides leadership for accreditation, strategic planning, SCADask, non-academic and academic support assessment, faculty credentials, federal and international compliance, and more. During her 17-year tenure at SCAD, O’Leary has led the university in earning stellar accreditations including maximum terms of reaccreditation from the National Architectural Accrediting Board, the Council for Interior Design Accreditation, and two 10-year terms of accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges with no recommendations for improvement. She also helped create the university’s last two strategic plans, SCAD2020 and SCADnext, as well as the university’s two quality enhancement plans.

Prior to joining SCAD, O’Leary served in research and analysis roles with the Colorado Department of Education, State University System of Florida, and the Sheps Center for Health Services Research. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics and English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Juris Doctor from Florida State University’s College of Law.

Gregg Bernstein

Gregg Bernstein is a user experience research leader and author of Research Practice: Perspectives from UX Researchers in a Changing Field. Currently, Bernstein is the director of user research for Hearst Magazines, where he connects the worlds of content creation and consumption. Previously, he managed innovative research practices at Condé Nast (The New Yorker, WIRED, Vogue, Pitchfork, Bon Appétit), Vox Media (Vox, The Verge, Polygon, Eater) and Mailchimp. He has also taught design, branding, and typography. Early in his career, Bernstein created album covers for punk and emo bands as well as designed for clients in the music and advertising industries.

Bernstein advocates for and practices user-centered product development, speaking about his work at conferences, company events, and in classrooms. He also mentors rising user researchers through First Round Capital’s Fast Track program. Bernstein earned his M.F.A. in graphic design from SCAD, where he focused on user experience research and design.