Claudia Rébola Winegarden completed her Ph.D. degree in Information Design at North Carolina State University, College of Design. She has developed a wide scope of expertise in the broad design areas including industrial/product design, human-computer interaction (HCI), and information architecture. Claudia's passion is in applying a holistic and multidisciplinary approach towards design practices that yield the integration of seamless non-invasive technologies and the physicality of the product into one unified experience. Her goal is to humanize technology though design with an interest in enriching and augmenting the human experience with the environment. Her work has been published in numerous books and magazines, Becoming a Product Designer among them.
Claudia was a director of Nexo Diseños, a graphic and industrial design-consulting firm based in Argentina. She also worked for Lowe's as one of the first industrial designers for setting-up the in-house design department. During her career, she has done successful consulting design work for international companies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), DaimlerChrysler, Medicab, Motorola, The Chapel Hill Historical Society (CHHS), Emergencia Medica Integral S.A., Coviplan, North Carolina State University, Junior Achievement, Vietri Inc., Presentation Strategies Inc., to mention a few.
A native of Córdoba, Argentina, Claudia received her Bachelor's of Industrial Design degree from Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. She received a Master in Industrial Design and her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University, College of Design. During her academic career Claudia was the recipient of numerous awards, among them the Fulbright-Hays Grant, Phi Kappa Phi, Tau Sigma Delta, an Argentinean presidential recognition for outstanding academic achievements in the design discipline and competition awards. She has also been involved in teaching activities at both universities.
Claudia has also worked with several laboratories and professors including Prof. Robin Moore on developing information design concepts for research in childhood development, Dr. Michael Young in the Liquid Narrative Laboratory with research in 3D worlds, and as an interface designer with Dr. Michael Rappa, head of the Open Courseware Laboratory at NCSU.