Liz Ogbu is a designer, urbanist, and social innovator. She is an expert on sustainable design and spatial innovation in challenged urban environments globally. From designing shelters for immigrant day laborers in the U.S. to leading a design workshop at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, Liz has a long history of engagement in the design for social impact movement. Currently, she has her own multidisciplinary consulting practice that works with nonprofits, municipalities, and companies to tackle wicked social problems through creative transformations of places, systems, and communities. Her clients include the Nike Foundation and PG&E. And her network of collaborators have been equally dynamic including the likes of HealthxDesign, envelope a+d, FOURM design+build, and Rebar.

Liz has been actively involved in shaping two of the world’s leading public interest design nonprofits. In 2011, she was part of the inaugural class of Innovators-in-Residence at IDEO.org, IDEO’s sister nonprofit dedicated to fostering global poverty reduction through design and innovation. Prior to that, she was Design Director at Public Architecture, a national nonprofit mobilizing designers to create social change.

She has taught at the California College of the Arts for several years, most recently holding an appointment as the inaugural Scholar in Residence at the school’s Center for Art and Public Life. She is also on faculty at UC Berkeley and Stanford’s d.school. Liz has also written for and been profiled in publications such as Places Journal, Metropolis, Core 77 and the Journal of Urban Design. Her work has also been widely exhibited, including at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Rotterdam Biennale and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Liz earned her Bachelor of Arts in architecture from Wellesley College and Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

WATCH: Design Acts - Creating Impact, By Design - A Public Lecture by Liz Ogbu, March 26, 2013