With over thirty years of creative practice, Melissa collaborates with many thinkers and makers to design experiences that embed the Arts in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEAM). Melissa is co-director of STEAMpop.zone while also engaged in research contributing to learning ecologies spanning creative intelligence and innovation, transdisciplinary education, and designing for preferred futures. Melissa enjoys being part of a bold community of multipotentialities intent on developing and sharing unique learning experiences for everybody.

Awards: Beth Southwell Award for Education Research 

Arielle is the senior lecturer for Design in Melbourne, who specialises in Branding, Typography, and Illustration.

Clint is a design addict, a compulsive gatherer and a very curious, creative, sharing 20+ years of design education, collecting letterpress artefacts, importing classic cars, and creating visual communication solutions are his primary passions.

His creations are based on core design principles and 30 plus years of design  experience, supported by a collaborative team of colleagues. Clint explores, learns, and preserve traditional crafts and is a passionate advocate for integrated art and design approaches. Clint seeks old craftspeople to collaborate with, combine their skills and learn from them, for him its all about sharing the knowledge with the next generation of creatives in an attempt to produce effective and creative human interactions.

Andrew Barnum is a Designer, Educator and Artist and continues to work on projects and in contexts that synthesise his experience and inspiration as a creative practitioner. In Design he is the chief creative officer of Social Design Action consultancy Peopleness, which is human-centered design focused. In education he is a PhD candidate at UTS researching the potential dislocation between Australian song, cultural identity and place in the digital age, and is course author and lecturer in the Bachelor of Design (Digital Design) at JMC Academy in Sydney.

As an artist his passion is songwriting and painting with independent releases on iTunes and Spotify as Andrew Barnum and Vitabeats, with a new project under the moniker of Memory Collective. His most recent paintings are a series of colour field investigations in Australian ‘colours in common.’

Growing up in Hong Kong and Australia, Rizwan Nawaz was always an avid learner and creative thinker. In high school he was Dux for 4 years and could have become anything he wanted to be; a finance professional, a doctor, a scientist or even a literary professional. However, his imagination and love for design would take him down a different path. Instead, he completed a Certificate II in Multimedia at TAFE plus a Bachelor of Visual Arts and Design at university.

He then began his career in uniforms and signage learning how to practically apply his designs. Soon he opened his own clothing store in a Sydney factory outlet, garnering that entrepreneurial spirit. All this by the age of 20. Soon after a university internship turned into a job at a B2B Publication house, where he worked on various industry magazines; including the finance, franchising, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing and media sectors. Rizwan then made his way up into a Creative Director role for a merchandising group. A few years later, he was poached to work as a Lead Pitch Designer in the commercial real estate sector.

All the while Rizwan dabbled in freelancing during this journey. He finally quit the corporate world to focus full-time on his creative agency, where he built a team of experts and followed a deep passion for learning, innovation and sharing his knowledge through teaching and lecturing. He is fascinated by history, mythology and philosophy; and how they can tie together a brand’s story, values and narrative. Championing diversity, equity and inclusion are also some of his life missions.

In his spare time, he loves photographing cityscapes and landscapes and is an accredited Master Photographer on Google Maps. He spends some of his year lecturing Design and Entertainment Business Management at JMC Academy.