Lisa Strausfeld to Give Convocation Address at PNCA
September 04, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 3, 2013
Contact: Lisa Radon, Communications Specialist
lradon@pnca.edu 971-255-5528
Becca Biggs, Director of Communications
bbiggs@pnca.edu 503-821-8892
Lisa Strausfeld to Give Convocation Address at PNCA PORTLAND, OR – September 3, 2013 – Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) welcomes award-winning design professional Lisa Strausfeld, who will give the 2013 Convocation Address on Friday, September 13 in the PNCA Commons. Strausfeld is known for her work in digital information design projects, beginning with a company she launched with two MIT classmates that made visual user interfaces for large databases, spanning ten years at design studio, Pentagram, and currently at Bloomberg where she is Global Head of Data Visualization. In addition, Strausfeld is a member of the PNCA’s Creative Leaders Council. This advisory board helps to shape PNCA’s future by advising on how to expand PNCA’s creative brand and deepen the College’s influence in the world of art and design. Convocation, which is from the Latin term for “calling together,” is an annual opportunity for the College’s community of students, faculty, staff and Board Members to come together and mark the beginning of the new academic year.
The annual Convocation address is one of PNCA’s four Cornerstone Lectures, which also include the College’s Homecoming Lecture during Alumni weekend, the Edelman lecture in March, and the Graduation Address given at Commencement in May.
About Lisa Strausfeld: Global Head of Data Visualization, Bloomberg, New York City, NY
Lisa Strausfeld is a design professional and information architect. In 1996, early in her career, Lisa and two MIT classmates launched Perspecta, a software company in San Francisco that made visual user-interfaces for large databases that they sold to Excite@Home in 1999. In 2002 Strausfeld became a partner in the New York office of Pentagram (design studio), where she and her team specialized in digital information projects including the large-scale media installations, software prototypes and user interfaces, and signage and websites for a broad range of civic, cultural and corporate clients. In 2011, Lisa established Major League Politics, a data-visualization venture.
She continues to work on projects for clients through her studio, InformationArt, and recently joined the staff of Bloomberg. Lisa was honored for interaction design in the 2010 National Design Awards, presented by Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution; she was a finalist for the award in 2009, the first year the discipline was recognized by the awards. She was named one of BusinessWeek’s “cutting edge designers” in 2007, and Sugar and the Times’ visualizations were both featured in the Museum of Modern Art exhibition "Design and the Elastic Mind" in 2008. Fast Company featured Lisa as one of its 2009 Masters of Design. She has received six awards in the prestigious International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA), co-sponsored by the Industrial Designers Society of America, and her projects have been honored by the Art Directors Club, the Type Directors Club, the AIGA and the Society for Environmental Graphic Design.
Lisa studied art history and computer science at Brown University and received master's degrees in architecture from Harvard University and in media arts and sciences from M.I.T.
About Pacific Northwest College of Art
As Oregon’s flagship college of art and design since 1909, Pacific Northwest College of Art has helped shape Oregon’s visual arts landscape for more than a century. PNCA students study with award-winning faculty in small classes. In the last seven years, PNCA has doubled both the student body and full-time faculty, quadrupled its endowment, and added innovative undergraduate and graduate programs. PNCA is now embarking on its boldest venture yet by establishing the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design as an anchor for the College’s vision of a new campus home on Portland’s North Park Blocks. Focusing on the transformative power of creativity, the capital campaign, Creativity Works Here, was launched in June 2012 with a lead gift from The Harold & Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation of $5 million. PNCA’s new home will be a bustling hub for creativity and entrepreneurship, reflecting the influential role of art and design in our 21st century economy – both in Portland and beyond.
For more information: pnca.edu.