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Team & Contacts A diverse international learning community

Our instructors are experts in their varied fields with international experience and profiles. We also benefit from exchanges with experts across Europe and beyond, in our extra-curricular activi¬ties, workshops, feedback sessions and evening lecture series.
 

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Team DMI

The DMI Team

Instructors of Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts

External Instructors

Luana Caselli
Jane Clifton
Stephen Herold
Katharina Herzog
Nicolò Luppino
Sylvie Merlo
Ramatu Musa
Arnaldo Perez
Luea Ritter
Marcel Samstag
Sybille Schempf
Siobhain Smiton
Karel van der Waarde

Luana Caselli, Jane Clifton, Stephen Herold, Katharina Herzog, Nicolò Luppino, Sylvie Merlo, Ramatu Musa, Arnaldo Perez, Luea Ritter, Marcel Samstag, Sybille Schempf, Siobhain Smiton, Karel van der Waarde

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Luana Caselli
Luana Caselli is a neuroscientist with a background in experimental psychology and biostatistics. She worked for several years as a researcher, studying the neural correlates of animal and human behaviour, with a focus on cognitive functions such as vision and action. She currently works in medical research dealing with data analysis and visualization. She combines her science and graphic skills to simplify scientific information and communicate it in a simple way. She is co-author of “Doctor G”, a graphic novel to promote informed health choices.

Area of expertise: neuroscience, psychology, data visualization 

Jane Clifton
Jane Clifton has a strong English language training background: an MA in English Language Training and over 15 years as Pedagogical Director of an international corporate language training organisation. She now specialises in English writing skills training for non-native English speakers, adult professionals (for example, staff from Clifford Chance, HSBC, Intertrust and Columbia Threadneedle). Jane focuses on the process and principles of effective writing to ensure students have a sound and confident grasp of the ‘essentials’. Individual feedback on students’ written English is provided.

Area of expertise: Business English writing skills

Stephen Herold
As an IBM Design Principal, Associate Partner and the Experience Design & Mobile Practice Lead for IBM iX Switzerland, Stephen is an expert in accommodating the fluid landscape of technology and human needs. Prior to joining IBM iX, he led cross-functional teams in San Francisco and Europe, creating and managing award-winning user experiences for brands from various industries. An expert in Enterprise Design Thinking as well as Agile methods, he often shares his secrets with global corporations and the local design community. Additionally, he has been a jury member for international design competitions including Cannes Lions.
When not working, he is outside and sometimes enjoys renegade rope swinging in the park with his daughter. When he grows up, he wants to live in the Alps or be a bike messenger – maybe both. 

Nicolò Luppino
Nicolò Luppino is a human-centered designer and has a varied experience in the field of project management for complex systems and environments. He works furthermore in design education and research. Through his work he supports the decision-making processes toward suitable, sustainable and innovative solutions that take organizational, economic, social and human aspects into account. Among the various projects, he collaborated with several international and Swiss companies, organizations and institutions such as Roche, Novartis, Vitra, die Post, Lungenliga Schweiz, and many important laboratories and hospitals.
www.nicololuppino.ch

Area of expertise: human-centered design, design tools and methods, project management for complex systems

Sylvie Merlo
Sylvie Merlo is a sparring partner, communications professional and networker for circular solutions. She offers strategic and forward-thinking consulting services for a distinctive communication on the challenging path of the circular economy. Taking a collaborative and trustful approach, she accompanies her clients in an iterative process. Working co-creatively with the partners in her network, she creates bespoke communication strategies and credible content. Sylvie started in the communications industry over 30 years ago. After an exciting stint in the marketing department of a well-known Swiss designer furniture manufacturer, she smoothly transitioned to her first period of self-employment. After graduating with an Executive Master’s degree in Communications Management from the University of Lugano, a new door opened: working for Switzerland’s largest furniture retailer, she was able to contribute and expand her knowledge in a managerial role. This period also saw the first strategic communication project in the circular economy. More extensive mandates for start-ups committed to the circular path were the logical consequence and today form the focus as a sparring partner strategic communications and public relations for the clients of MERLOCOM. 

Area of expertise: Corporate Communications, Public Relations, Internal Communications with focus on Circular Economy

Ramatu Musa
Ramatu Musa is an American writer, editor, and art administrator with 10 years of professional experience. She earned an MA (Insigni Cum Laude) from the University of Basel; and pursued post-graduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ETH Zürich, University of Hamburg, and the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education. Musa is a Fulbright Scholar and an Oxford-Callaloo Creative Writing Fellow. In Switzerland and Sicily, she presented her art historical research as an invited panelist at academic conferences.  
As an Associate Manager at Parsons School of Design in New York, she currently contributes to a team that supports over 400 part-time faculty across the School of Constructed Environments, School of Design Strategies, School of Art, Design, History, and Theory, and School of Fashion. Prior to that, she was the Communication & Programs Manager at a contemporary art museum in Houston, America’s fourth-largest city. Outside of academia, Musa has worked in corporate communication, stakeholder relations, and public affairs at Novartis, KPMG LLP, and the U.S. Mission to the UN and Other International Organizations.  
  
Area of expertise: Creative & Professional Writing 
 
Arnaldo Perez
Dr. Arnaldo Perez has a master’ degree in educational psychology and a PhD in Medical Sciences. He is an assistant clinical professor at the University of Alberta, Canada. Dr. Perez teaches several subjects, including qualitative research methods, behavioural change, academic writing, and evidence-based approach. Dr. Perez has extensive experience in qualitative research, but he is also familiar with quantitative, mixed-method, and review research. Dr. Perez has published more than forty papers in peer-reviewed journals related to health and health education. He has coordinated several multi-site, multi-method research projects and his areas of interest include health behaviour, behavioural change, engagement in health service, active learning, curriculum evaluation, and student wellbeing. He regularly supervises postgraduate students in conducting educational and clinical research and has been successful in maintaining grant support for his research program.
 
Area of expertise: Qualitative research, Educational research, Behavioural change
 
Marcel Samstag
Marcel Samstag drives strategic digital transformation initiatives around mobility concepts for the future with SBB. He has a vast professional background in digital business, e.g. in product development of mobile internet services, the international expansion of a corporate footprint with a cloud-based consumer services platform across several markets or the establishment of a product experience design organisation for a multi-national company. Marcel Samstag studied marketing and business administration at HWV (today Zurich University of Applied Sciences) and gained an International MBA in General Management in Rotterdam and Toronto. Among fuelling the knowledge transfer of digital change between the business and academic worlds his passion lies in enabling organisations to cope with today’s challenges in innovation, transformation and collaboration.


Area of expertise: Implications of digital transformation on organisations, digital business landscape (platforms & ecosystems), new paradigms and frameworks along digital transformation

Sibylle Schempf
Sibylle Schempf is an international Design and Business Management specialist teaching and  working in Europe, the US and Asia. She holds a BFA Fine Art from Parsons School of Design and received an MBA International Marketing from New York University's Stern School of Business. In addition she was trained as a model maker and jewelry designer at FIT in New York City. She works on international launches for global brands in Luxury and Design as well as strategy consultant for USAID led economic initiatives for competitive industry cluster development in Craft Design and Manufacture in conflict areas across Asia. She calls herself a Cultural Geographer and hybrid thinker who integrates the complexity of divergent cultures in human-centered design, research and business, and takes a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to problem solving. She is sparring partner to C-level executives on how to identify new business opportunities, set innovation agendas and define new-to-the-world platforms. As T-shaped thinker with multifaceted knowledge, she sees her teaching as inspiration for the next generation to practice innovative thinking and lead in action.

Area of expertise: Innovation Management 

Siobhain Smiton
Originally from the UK with a difficult-to-pronounce Irish name, I have lived in Switzerland since 2010 and am happily settled in Basel.
I am an internationally-experienced organisational consultant and coach with 20 years of in-house corporate experience gained with BP plc in the UK and Novartis Pharma AG in Switzerland. My roles have been in the fields of Organisational Development and Design, Talent Management, Change Management and Leadership Development.
My current independent consulting practice spans a variety of industries and, in addition, I am a doctoral candidate in the UK in organisational consultancy, advanced practice and research.

Organisational model experience:
I have experience working with a wide variety of organisational models, including:

• Divisional with loose affiliation to overall organisation and largely independent CEOs
• Business units with ongoing cycles of rapid acquisition, integration and separation
• Integrated matrix structures with centralization along functional lines
• Third sector memberships associations
• Venture capital-backed organisations

Each model is underpinned by a particular governance approach which has an influence on how work gets done.

Karel van der Waarde
Dr Karel van der Waarde studied graphic design in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. He started a design – research consultancy in Belgium in 1995 specializing in the testing of pharmaceutical information. He publishes and lectures about visual information. He is a life-fellow of the Communications Research Institute (Melbourne), a board member of International Institute for Information Design (Vienna) and editorial board member of several journals. www.graphicdesign-research.com

Area of expertise: information design, medical information, user testing