Natacha Poggio
Graphic Design Professor, Houston, TX, USA
Natacha Poggio is a U.S. Fulbright Scholar, TEDx speaker, designer, and University of Houston-Downtown professor whose work focuses on designing planet-centered solutions to address health, environmental, and social justice problems. She has over two decades of professional practice, and her work has reached hundreds of communities in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Natacha is the Creative Director of Design Global Change, a think-tank she founded in 2008, comprised of design students and professionals who develop and implement visual communication solutions to effect positive change. Examples of the projects she has been leading include creating campaigns on sanitation and gender equity in rural India, wellness for HIV+ farming communities in Kenya, developing rehabilitation materials to assist amputees to regain mobility, and environmental initiatives that encourage Ecuadorian children to protect the rainforest. In recognition of her collaborative work, Natacha is a three-time recipient of the Sappi “Ideas that Matter” award which supports designers using their expertise to solve communications problems for nonprofit organizations. In 2022, she received the Fulbright U.S. Scholar award for an environmental ocean literacy project on marine conservation in Ecuador. Natacha lectures on social impact design around the world and judges competitions, such as AIGA Worldstudio. She shares her expertise on the Winterhouse Institute Advisory Council and has volunteered in multiple roles for AIGA. She earned a B.F.A. in Graphic Design from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and an M.F.A. in Design from the University of Texas at Austin, United States. Natacha is a native of Argentina but considers herself a citizen of the world.