About the Lucas J. Daniel Series in Sustainable Systems
Lucas J. Daniel Series in Sustainable Systems
The focus of ID’s annual event in memory of ID alum Lucas J. Daniel (1974–2017) is to drive discourse in sustainability and systems design, areas Lucas was passionate about.
Speakers have discussed a range of related topics, from biomimicry to energy to food access.
Green leaves with veins showing
Deb Chachra
April 20, 2026: Luca Gonnelli
Luca Gonnelli leads the data visualization studio Algo as CEO & Creative Director, focused on developing generative systems. Algo builds creative tools that turn data into videos, at scale—building more than 605,000 videos in the last year with the belief that “robots and humans can happily coexist and create awesome things together.”
Luca travels to Chicago from Turin, Italy, an Italian hub for contemporary design.
The eighth annual Lucas J. Daniel Lecture in Sustainable Systems is co-presented by the Institute of Design and AIGA Chicago.
2025: Just, Creative, and Cooperative: Our Shared Infrastructural Future | Deb Chachra
Deb Chachra considers how our infrastructural networks, including electricity, water and sewage, telecommunications, and transportation, shape and enable our lives as we know them. The networks that we benefit from today are the physical embodiment of the values of those who came before us. Today, with new possibilities of renewable energy generation at scale, we have the opportunity to transform these systems—and our built environment—to be reliable and sustainable, resilient and equitable.
2024: Designing for a More Equitable World with Systems Thinking | Sheryl Cababa
On April 11, 2024, Sheryl Cababa discussed how there is still a spark of value in some of the tenets of design thinking, but to make it really shine, and to design for a more just and equitable world, systems thinking needs to be at the center of the designer’s practice. Read the transcript of her talk.
2023: Eating on Earth 2050 | LinYee Yuan & Mats Lederhausen
LinYee Yuan, Mats Lederhausen, and other experts share perspectives on the future of our food systems for our fifth annual Lucas J. Daniel Series in Sustainable Systems.
2022: Climate Resilience Intersections | Erika Allen
How can we address the inequities and structural racism that exist in the food system and in communities of color?
In this talk, Erika Allen, co-founder and CEO of the Urban Growers Collective, discusses urban agriculture, food waste, circular economies, and community participatory research.
2021: Small Things Forgotten | Gretchen Bakke
In this third annual lecture, ID invited cultural anthropologist Gretchen Bakke, author of The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future, to discuss this complex systems design and sustainability challenges.
In conversation with ID faculty Weslynne Ashton and Carlos Teixeira and Illinois Tech professor Mohammad Shahidehpour, director of the Robert W. Galvin Center for Electricity Innovation, Bakke reveals the social aspects of infrastructure and technological management, Chicago’s own relationship with ‘the grid’ and microgrids (including Illinois Tech’s own microgrid), and design’s critical and urgent role in reimagining this deeply important civic infrastructure.
2019: Reflections on Energy Management in the Natural World | Jenny Carney
In this second annual lecture, Jenny Carney, LEED AP O+M, Vice-President, Sustainability, Energy, and Climate Change at WSP, Inc. spoke on “Energy Ecosystems: Reflections on Energy Management in the Natural World, and Chicago’s Clean Energy Transition.”
About Lucas J. Daniel
The Lucas J. Daniel Series in Sustainable Systems was endowed in 2018 by family, friends, colleagues, and classmates of Lucas J. Daniel. Lucas was a 2005 ID graduate and spent 11 years at Chicago design and innovation consultancy gravitytank. There he built a food experience design practice that applied holistic, systems-level thinking to food innovation. At the time of his passing, Lucas was Senior Director, Strategic Innovation at Salesforce, Inc., where he managed innovation teams and advised customers within the Ignite Business Unit Group.
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Kristin Gecan
Assistant Dean & Senior Director for Content
Contact Kristin Gecan for media inquiries and event partnerships.