Zach Pino
Assistant Professor of Data-Driven Design
“This opportunity to create not singular, fully understood designs, but rather incredibly intricate and dynamic multiples of our experience, is a tremendous moment in design.”
Zach Pino is Assistant Professor of Data-Driven Design and Director of the Inclusive Data Lab at the Institute of Design, where he researches inclusive approaches to data-driven design. For over a decade, he has taught generative and algorithmic design topics spanning procedural content creation, recommendation and personalization systems, generative 2D and 3D form, data visualization, and dynamic narrative content—all grounded in accessibility and equity. He maintains open-source libraries and online coursework on these topics on Observable and GitHub. Zach holds a Master of Design from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Computer Science from the University of Chicago.
Industry Experience
Zach’s contributes code to dozens of open source projects, and his work has been displayed at the Istanbul Design Biennial, Volume Gallery in Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Block Museum of Art. He has led technology-development projects with Steelcase Furniture and NEC America, and has built many digital prototyping courses and educational programs in design departments throughout Chicago for students of all ages and backgrounds.
Recent work
Book Sections
Fuller, Jarrett. 2023. “How Does Someone Become a Designer?” Where Must Design Go Next? Novato, CA: ORO Editions.
Papers
Kim, Sylvia S., Punnen Mathew, A., and Pino, Z. 2024. “Passageways and Portals: A Comparative Analysis of Transition Spaces in Physical, Digital, and Virtual Environments, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.1166
Cain, John, and Zach Pino. 2023. “Navigating Design, Data, and Decision in an Age of Uncertainty.” She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, The Future of Design Education: Rethinking Design Education for the 21st Century, 9 (2): 197–212. doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2023.07.002.
Pino, Zach. “Form and Function.” Poetry 216, no. 3 (2020): 256–59. jstor.org/stable/27202639.
Zach Pino & ID Students Explore Vulnerability and Self-Tracking through Four Designs
Assistant Professor Zach Pino led the Memiro team, which produced four distinct designs exploring self-tracking technologies for vulnerable populations: Digital Legacy, Community-Driven Cartography, Moving Alignment, and Personal Encoding.