2021-2023 OSHWA Board Nominees

Become an OSHWA member today to vote on nominees!

This year, we have 4 open seats on the OSHWA board. Board members will hold a 2-year position. Once board members have been chosen by the community, the board will appoint a President, VP, and Secretary. As every nominee answered “Yes” to having 5-10 hours a month to give to the board, we did not include that question in each nominee’s data. Board responsibilities include fundraising, advising on goals and direction, and carrying out compliance of the organization’s purposes and bylaws.

The vote will be open on Oct. 19th-25th. Members will be emailed a link to vote. Here are the nominees in no particular order:

Wendy Ju

Why do you want to be on the board?

I am interested in the role that OSHW can play in creative entrepreneurship. I would love to serve the OSHW community by developing more curriculum and tutorials to help people produce, populate and test inexpensive quick-turn PCBs so that people with cool HW ideas might be able to make a living making and selling interactive devices to others.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I am an Associate Professor of Information Science at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech in New York City. I teach a graduate course in Developing and Designing Interactive Devices. My research focuses on designing interaction with automated systems; I frequently use interactive technologies to prototype the future. I have developed and shared curriculum to teach Arduino and Raspberry Pi in the context of making interactive musical instruments, far-out Mp3 players, and robots of many flavors.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

I recognize that there are numerous aspects of engineering, computer science, and STEM fields in general which need to be made over to give more people from different racial, geographical, and socio-economic backgrounds access to the tools of production. I deeply believe that greater inclusion will greatly benefit the field and our practices, and am committed to break down barriers and address inequity.

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Pamela L. Jennings

Why do you want to be on the board?

I have been involved in several research activities and community forums for open source hardware including the early OSH Workshop at the Banff Centre (2008/2009); the Sketching-in-Hardware consortium; and my own research in IoT hardware design for EdTech. I’ve always been interested in and have taught physical computing/sketching-in-hardware/hardware hacking/ Making as platforms for learning. I am also interested in the commercialization of hardware dependent products.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

Throughout most of my career I have been an academic straddling the worlds of the arts, design, and technology. I served as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation CISE IIS CreativeIT and HCC programs. I’ve been involved in several projects at the National Academies of Sciences about creativity, STEM, and integrative learning in higher education. And I recently received an NSF SBIR Phase 1 grant for my company, CONSTRUKTS, Inc. (https://www.CONSTRUKTS.com)

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

Please view Pamela’s statement here: https://www.pamelajennings.org/speaking.html

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Thea Flowers

Why do you want to be on the board?

To expand the open source hardware movement into new focus areas, especially music technology and small scale manufacturing. To empower open source developers with resources to create, use, and build from open source software and hardware.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I have long been an open source software advocate and I started an open source hardware music technology company last year. During my career, I have contributed significantly to multiple high-profile open source projects and to the Python community (for which I’ve been honored as a Python Software Foundation fellow). I bring a decade of experience in open source software, community organization, and developer experience.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

I believe that open source – software and hardware – is for everyone. Knowledge and technology are capable of being incredibly empowering when used with careful intent. Each of us has a moral and ethical obligation to humanity to build a community and industry that is beneficial to us all – especially those that have historically been discriminated against.

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Nadya Peek

Why do you want to be on the board?

I believe technology to be a democratic tool. To enable this, I believe in creating reusable, modular, extensible, interoperable, and accessible technologies. Specifically, I believe in creating infrastructural technologies that can serve any (unintended) application. I believe Open Source Hardware can (and already does) fulfill infrastructural needs—e.g., boards like Arduinos or Duet3Ds. However, unlike open source software, replicating hardware always has a cost—the cost of parts and manufacture. I’m interested in how to support *distributed* making. I’m especially interested in distributing production of of complex electromechanical devices such as digital fabrication machines or bioreactors. On the board I’d provide digital fabrication expertise and work on topics like quality control and documentation. The supply chain failures in the COVID-19 pandemic have especially highlighted what open source hardware design together with distributed production might enable. I would like to serve on the board of the Open Hardware Association as I believe it to be an organization uniquely focused on developing, discussing, and disseminating open standards for technology design and production.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I have been actively developing open source hardware for almost two decades! I develop open-source hardware machines and controllers in my group Machine Agency at the University of Washington. Some of our projects include the Cardboard Machine Kit, Jubilee3D, and p5.fab. I’m an engineering prof and teach digital fabrication and physical computing. My group shares their research widely—besides academic publications and conferences we also can generally be found at things like Hackaday Supercon, Crowdsupply Teardown, RRFs, and CCC. I got my PhD at MIT in the Center for Bits and Atoms, where I helped set up many fab labs and makerspaces. I have been on the board of OSHWA many times before and have a lot of experience helping organize the summit, including pivoting the summit to remote when a virus becomes a global threat. I think I am qualified to be on the board because of my technical expertise and my experience with community organizing, fundraising, and promoting OSHW.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

A major goal of mine is broadening the participation of women, racially underrepresented people, and people from disadvantaged socioeconomic statuses in engineering and particularly Open Source Hardware. As a woman engineer of mixed race and ethnicity, this matter is of both professional and personal importance to me. To achieve this, I dedicate time to organizing events to address structural racism at my workplace, to mentoring groups who have historically been excluded from engineering, and by participating in policy making efforts that can further goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. I use my position of privilege and power as a professor at a public US university to stand up for those in more precarious positions. I value and support the past inclusion efforts of OSHWA, e.g., the Ada Lovelace fellowship, and would work to further them were I to be elected to the board.

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Mirela Alistar

Why do you want to be on the board?

Being able to contribute to OSHWA has been a dream of mine since years. Back then, I was a PhD student in Embedded Systems at DTU (Denmark) and a very strong advocate of releasing our research open-source (to the extent that at conferences I was pointed at and referenced as the “open-source girl”). The minute I learnt about the DIY local community, I got involved as a chair for Biologigaragen (DIYBio in Denmark) and later even co-founded a community wetlab in Berlin (>top). In this context, I worked with other DIYBio researchers and we together developed open-source hardware for biotech experiments. Year later, I am now an Assistant Professor in soft materials at CU Boulder, and have the confidence and maturity to feel that I can really contribute to OSHWA.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

This part is extremely hard to write, so I will present a few facts and hope the qualifications will stem out of them. As mentioned, I have been pro-actively involved in the DIYBio community in Europe. Specifically, I was providing content (designing and making hardware to biotech experiments), education (I organized >30 workshops around the world in public spaces such as museums or techno festivals), and leadership (I was the chairwoman for DIYBio in Denmark and co-founder of a DIYBio space in Berlin, as well as present to most European DIYBio summits). In the DIYBio context, there has been a lot of open-source hardware development stemming for a diverse collaboration: our communities were welcoming artists, designers, engineers, cooks, filmmakers, etc. I understand very well the synergies when interweaving diversity, the passion to make, and the struggle to release open-source in a capitalistic world. One of the devices that I contributed to, OpenDrop, has been published in an academic venue, released open-source on github, and has now over hundreds of replicas around the world. Prestigious labs, such as from MIT and UW, forked the device to create a new biochip for DNA computing and liquid display. Needless to say, I understand the importance of releasing hardware open-source, and the significance of showing people on how to make it, and educating them on how to use it.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

As an international woman, and of color, I have experienced a lot of discrimination, and injustice. It made me stronger but also gave me a strong voice and determination to make sure that diversity and inclusion are norms. In my position right now, I encourage female students and underrepresented minorities to engage in research. My lab has 4 female PhD students, and the only 2 male PhD students are LatinX and Black. I have kept an eye open to encourage young female students, and so far I have mentored 7 female undergraduates that went on to pursue an academic career. I am pro-actively involved in hackathons, public workshops (at the library, museums), reaching out to marginalized communities (e.g., the blind), and even worked hard to get some funding from Google to support some of this work. I am not only making these efforts myself, I am making it compulsory for any of the students working with me to engage in outreach. The hope is to propagate these actions, such that they become inherent and a habit in the future.

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Shaun Savage

Why do you want to be on the board?

I have been working with Open Source since 1992, Linux v0.97. I want to support Open Source. The next challenge is OS hardware. I even had my own TV cable access show TVLinux that I produced for 5 years.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I have graduate degree in EE and a patent in silicon design.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

I am a disabled veteran.

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Taylor Hokanson

Why do you want to be on the board?

While I think open hardware makes great business sense, I am also interested in the way that the open source philosophy increases access and equity for individuals and organizations that do not have a for-profit model. By supporting cross-pollination and creativity for its own sake, we significantly increase the chances that the Next Big Thing gets made, and made in a way where we can all benefit. I would like to serve on the board to represent this perspective.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I am an Associate Professor with fifteen years of experience teaching art and technology at the college level, and have deep experience organizing large groups of passionate people around creative/progressive initiatives. I participated in the first Open Hardware Summit, where I spoke about the open source DIY CNC machine plans that my design collaborative released in 2008. My creative practice includes a sledgehammer-operated typing keyboard and a monumental, cast-iron sculpture that you can set on fire via Twitch chat commands. I am heavily invested in the open source community, and want to do my part to help push the movement forward.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

While representation is crucial as a first step towards DEI+J, fundamental transformation of underlying power structures is needed to advance any cause in an equitable fashion. This semester, for example, I am teaching a studio class about speculative sex/gender in collaboration with Kay Dartt, a Trans artist and academic from West Virginia. Together we are building curriculum that examines Queer Theory and Xenofeminism through the process of art making. We plan to organize the products of this class into a traveling show, and will also labor to ensconce our course in the permanent curricular rotation at our respective schools. Both of these goals are intended to embed progressive material and ideas within two sometimes conservative power structures: the art gallery and academia. Similarly, were I to join OSHWA in a leadership role, I would investigate fundamental organizational impediments to the participation of disenfranchised groups, then labor to remove those obstacles at the board level.

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Daniel Wessolek

Why do you want to be on the board?

Would like to further open hardware in Europe and think it would be great to act as a bridge of sorts. I enjoy promoting open hardware and FLOSS tools, as having low-barrier reproduction and remixing possibilities through open tools, also in connection with maker space technologies, seems a good way to encourage people to create their own solutions. Also, working towards EU requirements in favor of open hardware and right to repair legislation could make open hardware more mainstream. There are some great people on the board and I would like to join efforts.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

Currently we are preparing a Prototype Fund Hardware at the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany. I am also active in the EU project OPENNEXT, where we are working with SMEs to develop more OSHW. I have spent time in academia and enjoy going to open hardware related gatherings, also I do not mind getting on a stage to share. I have created a first open hardware toy sequencer in 2007, and continue developing open hardware with others. Also, I have a PhD in Design and spent quite some years abroad. I like the intersection of art and tech.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

FLOSS and OSHW should be part of any university education. Education and tools should be freely available to anyone curious to engage in this area. Co-design processes with people from various backgrounds and interests are the most fruitful and fun. Learned a lot from working with Deaf people, particularly from a colleague who is an interface designer engaged in promoting Deaf culture and building bridges to hearing people and vice versa. I helped create different Careables in a format called Open Health HACKademy. Nonetheless, as a middle-aged white dude with an academic middle-class family background, I am also happy letting others go first – or to collaborate.

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Charles Steinkuehler

Why do you want to be on the board?

I am excited by the opportunity to advance the adoption of open source principles for hardware projects and platforms. I have benefited from using and contributing to many open source projects over the years and feel this would be a great way for me to give back and to help grow the community.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I have been designing electronics hardware for 35 years and working with open source projects as both a user and contributor for 20+ years. I am familiar with virtually all aspects of electronics design including analog, digital, and mixed signal designs, microcontrollers, FPGAs, firmware, and “gateware” or RTL coding. I have excellent communications and problem solving skills and experience in both traditional management and coordinating volunteer teams.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

I affirm the inherent dignity of every human being and the need to create a society where all can prosper and become one’s best self. I commit to holding myself accountable and taking concrete steps to create an environment that is inclusive, respectful, and equitable.

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Katherine Scott

Why do you want to be on the board?

I have been on the board twice and a member of the OSHWA community since its inception. I am generally one of the more active board members and I would like to continue my work on the board.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I have been on the board previously and have worked with the OSHWA community since at least 2010. I am also presently employed at Open Robotics; an organization that builds open-source software and hardware for robotics. Prior to working at Open Robotics I co-founded an electronics manufacturing company, worked on multiple open-source projects, and have degrees in electrical and computer engineering.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

I have been working as a straight white woman in engineering for over fifteen years; it wasn’t always easy, and it still isn’t. Now that I have achieved a modicum of success, I feel that my role is to offer assistance to, and elevate the voices of, traditionally marginalized individuals who wish to enter the field. Personally, that takes the form of regular volunteer and outreach work I do outside of OSHWA, along with various activities I have performed in the workplace.

With respect to OSHWA, open-source hardware and software offer a unique opportunity for marginalized identities to engage with technology without the gate-keeping that is often found in academia and industry. As a board, I see our role as having four parts with respect to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.

First, OSHWA should fully commit to creating spaces where traditionally marginalized individuals feel welcomed, respected, and able to fully express themselves without fear of reprisal.

Second, with respect to technology and policy, OSHWA should actively work to remove or replace historical technology and policies that harmed marginalized communities.

Third, OSHWA should work with marginalized communities to evaluate new open-source technology and policies to avoid continued or future marginalization or oppression.

Forth, OSHWA should actively recruit and support, financially where possible, the inclusion of traditionally marginalized individuals in the open-source hardware community.

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Please find details of our election process here.