Thomas Garvey
2023-2025 WDO President
Ottawa (Canada)

Dr. Thomas Garvey is President of the World Design Organization, an international non-governmental organization that promotes the profession of industrial design and its ability to generate better products, systems, services, experiences, and ultimately a better environment and society.

Garvey has worked across a range of design disciplines and global settings and has led international teams in professional design projects and research programs and co-chaired the reintroduction of the Research and Education Forum at the World Design Assembly in 2019.

Prior to WDO, Garvey was Associate Professor in the School of Industrial Design at Carleton University where he was Director from 2007-2017. He specialized in design for extreme and minimal environments. His interest in small-scale living spaces grew out of work in New York on space station interiors and led to doctoral studies at the University of Tokyo on the topic of housing and urban density. In 2022, he was appointed as Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Design of Hunan University.

Garvey and his teams have earned numerous awards, and their work has been presented around the world. He holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design from Carleton University, a M.Sc. in Communications Design from Pratt Institute in New York, and a Ph.D. in Architectural Planning from the University of Tokyo.

Jonathon Glus
Director, Department of Cultural Affairs, City of San Diego
San Diego (USA)

Jonathon Glus is the director of the Department of Cultural Affairs at the City of San Diego, where he leads the city’s investment in the arts, culture and creative industries, where he works closely with partners in city planning and economic development, academia, philanthropy, tourism, and binational and global cultural initiatives. Glus currently serves as a founding board member of World Design Capital San Diego-Tijuana 2024.

Glus has more than two decades of experience in the nonprofit and public sectors in senior cultural leadership roles, including CEO of Houston Arts Alliance and Executive Director of Arts & Culture for City of Pasadena, CA. He began his career with the International Sculpture Center, in Washington, DC, where he wrote for SCULPTURE magazine and travelled exhibitions internationally. Glus has commissioned four creative economy studies; is a founding member of the Creative Economy Coalition; and is currently serving as an advisor on the State of California’s first creative industries study. He has sat on the executive committee of the US Urban Arts Federation for more than a dozen years.

He studied liberal arts at Earlham College and urban economics and public policy at Indiana University, where he received his BA. He pursued masters work in art and architectural history at University of Illinois, and later received a certificate in British urban policy at University of Kent, in Canterbury, England.

Jonathon lives in downtown San Diego with his husband, a design publicist and author.

Josephine Yilan Liu
Co-Founder, Urban Future Global Conference
Vienna (Austria)

With over a decade of expertise in architecture, design, and cognitive science, Josephine is devoted to shaping environments that nurture the well-being and growth of individuals and communities. As the co-founder of Europe’s largest event on sustainable development and cities, the Urban Future Global Conference, she reimagines urban projects through pioneering, cross-sector collaboration.

Her work delves into profound questions like, “What should the future of cities entail?” and “How can we forge nurturing, empowering, and transformative environments?” By marrying leading-edge cognitive science, psychology, and evolutionary biology with design, she crafts spaces that drive positive behavioural and societal shifts. This interdisciplinary approach elevates urban projects as holistic remedies for today’s intricate societal dilemmas, serving as catalysts for impactful transformation.

She firmly believes that our surroundings shape our behaviours, beliefs, values, and identities. Championing urban solutions informed by cognitive science, she seeks to transcend mere functionality and sustainability, enriching human experiences and driving meaningful change.

As a consultant and speaker, Josephine has shared her insights across Asia, North America, and Europe, fostering collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Through her talks and projects, she aspires to inspire urban thinkers and practitioners to redefine the essence of urban living and shape a brighter future.

Charles Montgomery
Author, Urbanist and Co-Founder of Happy Cities
Vancouver (Canada)

Charles Montgomery is an award-winning author, urbanist and leader of interventions to improve wellbeing in cities around the world. His acclaimed book, Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, examines the intersection between urban design and the emerging science of happiness. As founding principal of Happy Cities, Charles leads an interdisciplinary team helping city-builders on four continents to translate evidence into pragmatic plans to achieve healthier, happier, more inclusive societies. His collaborators include the World Health Organization, the Guggenheim Museum, British Land and local governments in Vancouver, Auckland, Mexico City, Denver and Dubai. Charles is a member of the Global Happiness Council’s sub-council for happy cities. In 2023, Planetizen magazine named him one of the 100 most influential urbanists in the world. The Trust Experiments, Charles’ new book that  explores the relationship between design and social trust, will be released in 2026. charlesmontgomery.ca happycities.com

Alice Rawsthorn
Design critic, Author
London (UK)

Alice Rawsthorn is an award-winning design critic and author, whose books include Design as an Attitude, Hello World: Where Design Meets Life and, most recently, Design Emergency: Building a Better Future, co-written with Paola Antonelli, senior curator of design at MoMA, New York. Alice’s books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and her weekly design column for The New York Times was syndicated worldwide for over a decade. In all her work, she champions design’s potential as a social, political and ecological tool.

Born in Manchester and based in London, Alice is a founding member of the Writers for Liberty campaign for human rights and of the international advisory council of the DemocracyNext research and action institute. She has been chair of the boards of trustees of Chisenhale Gallery, The Hepworth Wakefield museum and contemporary dance group Michael Clark Company, as well as a longstanding trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery and Arts Council England. Alice is a co-founder, with Paola, of Design Emergency, the podcast, YouTube channel and research platform, which investigates design’s role in forging a fairer future. Her next book,

Design and Identity is to be published by JRP|Editions in 2026.