David is the lighting designer at the Rubin Museum of Art with over two decades of art lighting experience working with art and artists from all over the world in museums, galleries and private collections. David is an advisory member of the IES Museum and Art Gallery Lighting Committee as well as the Committee on Lighting for the Elderly and Partially Sighted.

Katie is an NCIDQ certified Interior Designer, with more than 17 years of professional experience.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Interior Design from Michigan State University.  Prior to teaching at NYSID, she practiced both commercial and residential design at SOM, Bogdanow Partners Architects, Eve Robinson Associates, Rockwell Group, and Gensler.

BA, Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design

Seema Pandya is an accomplished sustainability consultant with over 15 years’ experience working with projects to design and construct sustainable building solutions. She has worked on over 40 sustainable building projects and is a 3rd party USGBC technical LEED Reviewer for over 100 projects. She also was recognized by Green 2.0, as a diverse leader in the environmental field. She is a graduate professor of sustainable design at the NY School of Interior Design and FIT SUNY currently teaching the Introduction to Sustainability in the Built Environment for graduate and undergraduate students, as well as Residential Studio 1, and Constructing, Operating, and Maintaining the Green Interior in the NYSID MPS program.  Seema is also an accomplished multidisciplinary artist exploring the intersection between sustainability, art, culture, and the built-environment with an aim of connecting audiences with experiential awareness of natural cycles. Having several public and private art commissions, her work has been featured in Vogue India, Mood of Living, and Fine Woodworking magazines. Seema also served as the Chair of the NY IIDA Sustainability Forum and Board Of Directors and currently sits on the Board of Directors for the non-profit, Brooklyn Raga Massive.

MFA, New York School of Interior Design

BA, Albany State University

MBA, Executive Program, Columbia Univeristy, Business School

BSME, Mechanical Engineering, University of Denver

Brian James Lee operates arx.construction, a design/contracting firm in New York City. He is also partner at the theory based design office FRYLEE. His collaborations include Eurostruct Inc., RAAD Studio, PARA-Project, SchaumShieh, and The Open Workshop, in addition to experience in the fields of art, print, and construction.

He has been invited as critic at City College in New York City and Pratt Institute, and has published projects featured in Architecture Record, Architectural Digest, TimeOut Magazine, and GQ.com, with written work in Bracket Architecture, MONU Magazine, and PLAT Journal. He was also selected as a participant for ArchiPrix Moscow 2013.

Brian earned an M. Arch from Rice University in Houston, TX, where he received the Dearden Award for Outstanding Thesis and participated in the RSAP (Rice School of Architecture Paris) Program

BFA, New York School of Interior Design

Architectural lighting designer, Natalia Lesniak is a multidisciplinary practitioner with a background in the arts and sciences, from the Cooper Union School of Art and the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She has worked on experiments and research that focus on the impact of light on circadian rhythms, cognitive performance, and the development of research based light therapy and design strategies. As a designer, Natalia works on a range of residential, office, hospitality, retail, and other commercial projects. She advises on the application of circadian research in architectural lighting.

After obtaining a Masters of Interior Design degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, Harry arrived in the United States in 1995. He gained extensive experience working for some of the city’s most respected firms and spent nine years in the offices of Albert Hadley, who dubbed his desk ‘the magic shop’ before opening his own eponymous firm.

Published in various magazines and books, Harry loves to contribute to charities and has participated in several show houses.

BFA, Fashion Institute of Technology

AA, Fashion Institute of Technology

Ian Gordon is an architect and co-founder of e+i Studio, a New York based architecture and design firm. The firm explores a multitude of project types ranging from residential and commercial projects, to exhibition design as well as digital fabrication and prototyping. He has a background in the fine arts, having studied oil painting and drawing during his high school years in Rome, Italy. He received a Master's in Architecture from Columbia University.

e+i Studio was recently shortlisted as one of the finalists for the Gateways to Chinatown competition. The firm’s work was also recently published in the book “Grand Stand 6” by Frame publishers. Prior to e+i studio, Ian was as an architect for Studio Daniel Libeskind where he worked on numerous international residential and commercial projects, competitions, and exhibition designs.

MA, Bard Graduate Center

BA, City University of New York

BFA, New York School of Interior Design; MFA, Hunter College; BFA, Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago

B.Arch, Architecture, University of Maryland

Nathalie Faubert, MIES, is a lighting designer working at Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design. She has worked on projects in the hospitality, educational, commercial, and residential fields. Her project work at CBBLD is published in numerous design industry magazines, with articles appearing in Architectural Digest, Architectural Record, Interior Design and Oculus. She has an BS in Interior Design and a MA in Lighting Design. She has been teaching lighting design to BFA and MPS-L students at NYSID since 2014.