Cumulus Plus Grantee
Natacha Poggio
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design, University of Houston Downtown (uhd.edu), USA
Natacha Poggio is a social impact educator, TEDx speaker, and advocate of design for social change.
In her teaching at the University of Houston-Downtown, she concentrates on the role nature plays in our lives and encourages students to find solutions that will inspire positive change in society. She is the founding director of Design Global Change (2008), a creative collaborative designing planet-centered solutions to address global health, environmental, and social justice problems. She has over two decades of professional practice, and her work has reached hundreds of communities in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, garnering recognition as a two-time recipient of the Sappi “Ideas that Matter” award. Since 2011, she has been on the Winterhouse Institute Advisory Council (working on the teaching and practice of social innovation in higher education). When not teaching, Natacha is judging competitions; contributing to books and publications on social design, global health, and sustainability; and volunteering for AIGA –the professional association of design. Natacha earned a B.F.A. in Graphic Design from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and an M.F.A. in Experience Design from The University of Texas at Austin, United States. She is a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina but considers herself a citizen of the world.