Team

Who We Are

We are designers, architects, storytellers, graphic designers, film-makers, engineers and technologists. Our studio is renowned for integrating these diverse skills in responsive and imaginative ways.

Tom Hennes founded Thinc Design in 1992 as an extension of a successful practice in theatre design. Over the last 25 years the firm has evolved into a dynamic and multi-disciplinary studio able to see projects through diverse lenses.

The shape and size of what we think of as our team expands and contracts according to the project. At times, it will include international architects like Renzo Piano, Snøhetta or Grimshaw, at others a theme park designer, a leading psychologist or a shark specialist.

Part of our skill is to orchestrate this vast array of contributions into a memorable experience that inspires the client, their communities and the public at large.

Our studio is physically in New York City but we work with clients all over the world. We have won dozens of national and international design awards and received wide critical acclaim. Between us we speak Arabic, Spanish, Hebrew, French, Japanese, Mandarin, German, Portuguese, Hindi and English (American, New Zealand and Yorkshire).

Aki Shigemori
Senior Graphic Designer
Aki Shigemori
Aki Shigemori
Senior Graphic Designer

Aki Shigemori is a Senior Graphic Designer with a versatile background in commercial design, art exhibition, and museum education. She is at ease with a wide range of styles, enhancing Thinc's visuals with elegant hand drawings and precise diagrams. Her graphic designs often have a naturalistic flair that complements the ecological themes present in much of Thinc's work. Aki's projects include the Connecticut Science Center, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Infinite Variety quilt exhibition, the Discovery Center at Discovery Park of America, the National 9/11 Memorial Museum, exhibits for the MIT Museum and the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, the USA Pavilion at Expo Milano 2015, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Jordan Museum, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the World Science Forum 2017 Jordan.

Previously, Aki worked as a graphic designer in Tokyo while curating and organizing contemporary art exhibitions in Kyoto and Hiroshima. Aki's expertise in 3D design began with her work as a shoe designer at Himiko in Tokyo.

Aki earned a MA in Museum Education from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a BA in the Science of Design from Musashino Art University in Tokyo. She is fluent in Japanese.

Chris Muller
Senior Exhibition Designer
Chris Muller
Chris Muller
Senior Exhibition Designer

Chris Muller is an artist and designer based in Brooklyn, NY. A background in theatrical and film design informs his work in many fields, with including his work in museum and exhibit design over the last 25 years. He has designed for the Museum of African Art. the Jewish Museum, the New York Historical Society, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, the National World War II Museum, the Children's Museum of Manhattan, the Morbid Anatomy Museum, and many others.

As a production designer and digital artist, Chris has worked on Broadway ('Allegiance,' 'On Your Feet,' 'M. Butterfly,' 'The Green Bird'), opera (San Francisco Opera, Dallas Opera, Pittsburgh Opera), film ('Ready Player One,' 'Ocean's 8,' 'Hostiles') and television (over 100 commercials as production designer and storyboard artist). He illustrated the children's book 'The Griffin and the Dinosaur' for the National Geographic Society.

Chris is an Associate Arts Professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, in the Graduate Department of Design for Stage and Film, where he teaches drawing, digital painting, and the cultural history of clothing and architecture.

Christopher Boyd
Studio Director
Christopher Boyd
Christopher Boyd
Studio Director

Christopher Boyd is a versatile and imaginative technologist with 20 years of experience implementing digital solutions for clients from highly diverse industries.

He is skilled at bridging the gap between creative objectives and technology capabilities. He has pioneered innovative solutions for Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, Stenograph Corporation, D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, US Polo Association and Madison Square Garden Entertainment.

He served as a Director of Technology for a rapidly growing $25MM jewelry company based in Indonesia where he successfully launched US operations and spearheaded the design and management of all technology and communications solutions.

As Director of Software Development for the NYC Board of Education, he conceptualized and implemented two online systems that resulted in a 300% increase in the school's system compliance with Federal and State Schools Against Violence in Education (SAVE) legislation. One of his systems was utilized in the evacuation of NYC students from the Ground Zero area on 9/11 and received national acclaim, and became a model for safety plan reporting systems throughout the country.

Chris hopes his experience will allow him to mentor Thinc Design and its clients to embrace new ideas and explore new creative and technical horizons.

You can take the boy out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the boy! Chris still loves grilling... even in the NY winter!

Clara Morer
Senior Exhibition Designer
Clara Morer
Clara Morer
Senior Exhibition Designer

Clara Morer brings more than sixteen years of experience as an exhibit designer and project manager. With knowledge, experience and interest in all stages of a project, she is especially engaged with artifact display, technical development and production and installation oversight.

She has worked on projects such as the Museum of Environmental Sciences in Guadalajara, Mexico, The USA Pavilion for Expo Milano 2015, and The Jordan Museum.

Prior to joining Thinc, Clara worked as an exhibit designer and project manager in Spain for several institutions and corporate firms, on national and international projects including the Madrid Pavilion at the World Expo Shanghai 2010, Sports Stadium Wayfinding Signage, and the Lazaro Galdiano Museum in Madrid, among others.

Clara holds a MA in Exhibit Design and a BA in Industrial Design from I.E.D., as well as studies in artifact conservation, mount display and showcases from the Spanish Society of Museography. In addition, she studied jewelry design at Central Saint Martin's College of Art & Design in London.

Clara also has experience as a project design teacher at the graduate level at I.E.D.

Clara designs and makes contemporary jewelry pieces.

Cynthia Lee
Senior Curator, Experience & Interpretation
Cynthia Lee
Cynthia Lee
Senior Curator, Experience & Interpretation

Cynthia Lee is an interpretive planner who brings a deep interest in the human condition to spark curiosity about the world around us. Cynthia received her BA at Vassar College, and her MPhil in Anthropology at Columbia University. She had early experiences working in Hong Kong's refugee camps and eventually became senior content developer for the Museum of Chinese in America. It was from these experiences that she derives a deep appreciation for the power of cultural work in everyday lives. She brings an understanding of community-based work, multi-disciplinary research, oral history, visual arts, and multimedia to a wide range of projects that aim to create engaging, immersive learning experiences.

Cynthia hails from the rocky north shores of Long Island, to which she attributes to her enduring love of places that meet the water and Little Neck clams. She also makes her own clothes.

David Lazenby
Senior Exhibition Designer
David Lazenby
David Lazenby
Senior Exhibition Designer

David is a Senior Designer and Art Director specializing in the planning and realization of immersive and experiential exhibits for aquariums, zoos, botanic gardens, and other ‘living’ environments. He has an impressive portfolio of landmark projects in the US, Europe, the Middle-East, and Asia, and his forte is as a visualizer using both digital and physical modelling to create concepts that are immediately and vividly comprehensible.

Eric Lindveit
Project Manager
Eric Lindveit
Eric Lindveit
Project Manager

Eric has been working in and around museums for most of his professional career. Over the past 25 years he's held the positions of project manager, production manager, museum department director, and founder and principal of an award-winning exhibition design/build firm. Never one to shy from a challenge, Eric's curiosity, attention to detail, and willingness to question the status quo has led to innovative solutions of complex problems.

Before joining Thinc, Eric was a production manager at ESI Design where he managed experience design production on projects including corporate headquarters, museums, a rail station, corporate real estate, and airport terminals. Prior to ESI he was Director of Exhibition Services at the Guggenheim Museum where he led the departments of Media Arts, Exhibition Construction, Exhibition Lighting, Mount Making, and Art Handling on exhibitions including Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, Doug Wheeler: PSAD Synthetic Desert III, and Giacometti.

In the late 90's Eric moved from Chicago where he was Production Supervisor at the Field Museum to start an exhibit design/build firm call Random Exhibit Services in New York City. A few highlights from this run were several exhibitions designed by Vignelli Associates, The Art of Scent at Museum of Arts and Design (Diller Scofidio + Renfro 2012), and Sculpture in the Age of Donatello at the Museum of Biblical Art (Studio Joseph 2015).

For fun Eric dabbles in sylvan architecture, collecting earlier illustrated natural history books based on second-hand information, and hearing about the personal stories that make us who we are.

Eric Hoffman
Executive Producer
Eric Hoffman
Eric Hoffman
Executive Producer

As an Executive Producer, Producer, and Writer/Director, Eric has led production teams in more than thirty countries on five continents, producing film, television, exhibition and digital media projects for clients including National Geographic, Discovery, Disney, Smithsonian Digital Studios, Google, Microsoft, Education Above All, the Gates Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, and many more.

At National Geographic, he helped launch both the domestic US National Geographic Channel and, years later, its first foray into the commercial digital video business.

For six years Eric lived and worked in Doha, Qatar, helping to build and launch the Doha Film Institute’s education and industry development programs, while developing and producing a wide range of cultural heritage projects, oral histories, and a slate of large format immersive film installations for Qatar’s New National Museum, recently named one of Time Magazine’s “World’s Greatest Places”.

Since returning to the US and prior to joining Thinc, Eric wrote, produced and directed a series of exhibition films for the US State Department’s “Our Ocean” global conservation conference, video series for the National Museum of American History, and produced VR series on the mind and memory in wartime, life in space, and juvenile incarceration in America for National Geographic and Google.

Eric’s work has been recognized by the American Television Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Webby Awards, the Lumière Awards, the CINE Golden Eagle Awards, the Banff Mountain Film Festival and VR Fest.

Helen Divjak
Senior Curator, Experience & Interpretation
Helen Divjak
Helen Divjak
Senior Curator, Experience & Interpretation

Helen Divjak is a Brooklyn-based storyteller, investigator, and cultural navigator with over twenty years' experience creating public programs, exhibits, and visitor experiences with museums in the US, UK, and Middle East. Her recent projects include the Milwaukee Public Museum (slated to open 2026) and Showstoppers: Spectacular Costumes from Stage and Screen (New York, NY, 2021).

Early in her career, the American Alliance of Museums named Helen an Emerging Museum Fellow, and her work has since won numerous local, regional, and national awards. She has since worked on major capital projects with the Museum of History & Industry in Seattle and London's National Army Museum, as well as with the National Museum of Jordan in Amman, London Transport Museum, Philadelphia Zoo, and the National Archives of both the US and the UK.

A passionate advocate for historic preservation and cultural heritage, Helen has extensive training in oral history, community engagement, and non-profit administration. She studied History and German Studies at Macalester College (Saint Paul, MN) and went on to earn a MA in European History from the University of Washington (Seattle, WA), specializing in cross-cultural encounters and warfare. She has served as an adjunct lecturer in Museum Studies with the University of Washington's Master's Program, and instructed courses on the preservation, care, and interpretation of historic collections.

Helen's hobbies include visiting UNESCO World Heritage Sites across the globe, baking cakes, and outdoor sports like hiking, running, and skiing (to make up for all those cakes). She is currently researching the impact and benefits of having fun—yes, fun—in museums.

Helen is a cookie connoisseur and fitness fanatic with a penchant for karaoke (ask to see her karaoke playlist).

Jacquelyn Van Eck
Project Manager
Jacquelyn Van Eck
Jacquelyn Van Eck
Project Manager

Jacquelyn's project management experience includes more than 10 years of interior design work, leading projects around the world for both residential homes and some of the most well known luxury retail brands. Her fastidious attention to detail and vigour carry through in her approach to projects from schedules, vendor relationships and onsite supervision. Jacquelyn is also an accomplished musician, playing the flute in orchestras and chamber groups around New York City and the US. She has coached musicians in performance and film, including the hit series Mozart in the Jungle. She brings a sensitivity and subtle touch to her projects, with a warm personality and infectious laugh.

James Pase
Senior Exhibition Designer
James Pase
James Pase
Senior Exhibition Designer

At home anywhere near water, James grew up around the smokestack dotted shores of Canadian steel town, Hamilton, Ontario. The simple forms of an industrial landscape, best viewed from the harbor, set against the Niagara Escarpment made a mark on his aesthetic, as did an ethos of discovery and knowledge through iterative making.

Early exposure to the trades at a vocational high school, and later degrees in fine art and architecture from Toronto Metropolitan University, and Rhode Island School of Design, set the stage for a robust professional career.

Through his professional work and innate curiosity he honed a vast array of fabrication and technical skills in tandem with conceptual visualization and documentation strategies. As a hands-on generalist within a specialized field of design, James has the ability to lead the realization of complex projects in every phase.

Prior to joining Thinc, James worked with conservation focused zoos, public aquariums, national parks, and theme parks worldwide to develop award-winning naturalistic habitats and support facilities for animals in their care. Notably, he served as a lead exhibit and architectural designer for two decades with Seattle-based Portico Group.

A life-long sailor and history buff, James loves teaching adult sailing classes, fixing broken stuff, fixing stuff that's not broken, and sharing stories about the way things used to be, at the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle where he lives.

James Hollingsworth Jr
Senior Exhibition Designer
James Hollingsworth Jr
James Hollingsworth Jr
Senior Exhibition Designer

James Hollingsworth is a designer in Brooklyn, NY with over 20 years' experience with NYC exhibition design firms. As a military dependent, he traveled extensively throughout the US and Asia in his youth. This time created an appreciation for diverse thinking in contrasting cultures while this broad world exposure laid the groundwork to take on a wide spectrum of exhibits continually fueling interests for all subject matter.

He has designed for Sony, GE, The Pro Football Hall of Fame, The New York Historical Society, The Hudson River Museum, Queens Library, Pertosains Discovery Center among many others. Collaborating with NYC fabrication shops, he has design detailed for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Samsung, Starbucks and Jeff Koons Studio. Working with many talented team members on many projects, he takes challenges with enthusiasm, constructive dialogue and hands on research and development when needed.

James holds a BFA with honors from Pratt Institute and a Master of Design Studies from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He spends his free time rebuilding vintage BMX bikes with his daughter.

Jesse Loosbrock
Exhibition Designer
Jesse Loosbrock
Jesse Loosbrock
Exhibition Designer

Jesse was born in Tennessee and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. At a young age, he discovered his predilection for asking questions about pretty much everything, and this curiosity crystallized an active imagination that continues to drive his interests today. Jesse has always loved to discover new ways of engaging his creative impulses - from making Claymation films with friends as a child, to learning how to 3D model with Rhino3D while still in grade school, to teaching himself how to play several musical instruments over the years. He considers his proclivity for learning to be his most valuable personality trait. Jesse's passion for both art and science and his desire to work across a range of creative disciplines led him to a MA in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in 2016. For his thesis, he developed a novel method of 3D printing holograms and continues to explore potential applications for this invention.

At Thinc, Jesse gets to indulge his love of learning new things and apply his diverse skillset toward contributing something meaningful to the world.

Before his life as a designer, Jesse composed music and sound for advertisements, film, and other media, and collects analog synthesizers.

John Steens
Exhibition Designer
John Steens
John Steens
Exhibition Designer

John describes his journey to Thinc Design as the "road less traveled" . He is motivated by service to the community and he strongly believes that intentful design can enhance our experience in the physical world. John is passionate about design in many forms his favorites being Illustration, sketching and 3D design. He loves to customize footwear and street fashion with pop culture inspirations. Living in New York City has made film and photography playful hobbies.

Jorge Martinez
Head of Design
Jorge Martinez
Jorge Martinez
Head of Design

Jorge Martinez has extensive experience working for clients ranging from corporations and zoos to natural science and children's museums. His work blends the best of environmental design - inviting spaces that evoke moods and settings at a glance - with an attention to content and a subtle wit that gives each exhibit a memorable twist. Jorge's educational background is in aerospace engineering and archaeology. He split his time between engineering and art at the University of Michigan, where he graduated from the Industrial Design program. He began working at a children's science museum while still in school and has been immersed in the world of exhibition design ever since. His work has spanned continents, communities, cultures, sciences and species. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.

Jorge accidentally purchased a Sylvester Stallone self-portrait in an art auction, which he has been learning to love ever since.

Melanie Feaster
Designer and Data Specialist
Melanie Feaster
Melanie Feaster
Designer and Data Specialist

Melanie Feaster is a designer with a background working in museums, university galleries, design studios, and non-profit arts organizations. Her diverse skill set includes exhibition design, graphic design, research, and content management.

Prior to joining Thinc, Melanie worked as a registrar for the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture in Baltimore, MD. There, she managed the gallery's Civil Rights Archive for the traveling exhibition, For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Additionally, she worked as an associate designer at International Arts & Artists in Washington, DC and created the visual identity for various traveling exhibitions, such as Modern Twist: Contemporary Japanese Bamboo Art. Her exhibition branding packages consisted of logo designs, didactic materials, and exhibition catalogs.

Melanie holds a MA in Exhibition Design from the Corcoran College of Art + Design and a BA in Visual Arts with concentrations in Graphic Design and Art History from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She designed her first exhibition, Constructed: Images of Labor, while attending the Summer Institute in Art Museum Studies at Smith College.

Melanie is a proud nerd, whose range of interests includes pop culture trivia, weird history, and supporting the PS4 in the console wars.

Oronde Wright
Senior Exhibition Designer
Oronde Wright
Oronde Wright
Senior Exhibition Designer

Oronde Wright loves a good problem. Even as a student designer at Rochester Institute of Technology, he always pushed himself to come up with many diverse solutions to a challenge. While there, Oronde set up an interclass mentorship program based on his conviction that every generation should strive to be better than the last. The experience exposed him to the pleasure of working for and with a community dedicated to self-betterment. His time as an art therapist at Menorah Nursing Home also fostered his sense putting people first in a space.

During his career as an exhibit designer he's worked on zoos, national museums and international expos, but his favorite project was a humble climate exhibit in Kathmandu that focused on teaching school groups how they could deal with climate change.

For fun, Oronde writes fiction and is fascinated with storytelling in all mediums, as it's an art form deeply ingrained in humanity since its early history.

Yes, my locks have taken over my brain and they do what they please!

Pam Schwartz
Managing Director
Pam Schwartz
Pam Schwartz
Managing Director

Rhoda Cosme
Project Manager
Rhoda Cosme
Rhoda Cosme
Project Manager

With over twenty years of experience in the fields of collections management and exhibit production, Rhoda's interest in exhibitions began early in her career while working as a research and production assistant at a local children's museum.

Before joining Thinc as a Project Administrator, she worked as a Collections and Exhibitions Management consultant for numerous organizations and individual clients. During this time she collaborated on many permanent and travelling exhibitions, while managing a private collection of artifacts featured in commercials, film and television, ultimately facilitating their donation to prominent museums throughout the US.

With a BA in Fine Arts and Theatre, she holds an MA in Theatre Arts from Goldsmiths College, University of London and a Master's Degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute.

Originally from Puerto Rico, she is fluent in Spanish.

Ryan Miller
Researcher
Ryan Miller
Ryan Miller
Researcher

Ryan is a researcher dedicated to using creative media to cultivate spaces for reflection, dialogue, and action. Having studied History of Art & Architecture and Urban Studies at Brown University, Ryan brings to Thinc experience working across the boundaries of art and architecture in several international contexts. Most recently, he was a cataloguer of contemporary art at a major auction house and previously acted as the David and Nina Fialkow Research Fellow at the Norman Foster Foundation in Madrid.

Across his professional experience, Ryan has balanced critical inquiry and creative practice while editing publications, authoring interpretive texts, and developing multimedia projects based on archival research. Sparked by his own family history and research projects based in Berlin, questions of collective memory and public space have emerged as a major through line in Ryan’s work. Ryan is interested in the way exhibitions, installations, and digital platforms can rebuild a sense of possibility and collective care for the communities and ecosystems which we inhabit.

Talk to Ryan about disco or favorite movies from the movida madrileña.
Shahira Hammad
Exhibition Designer
Shahira Hammad
Shahira Hammad
Exhibition Designer

Shahira is a versatile architect and artist with experience in architecture, product design, and museography. She holds a Master's degree from the Excessive postgraduate program led by Hernan Diaz Alonso at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (dieAngewandte) where she graduated with distinction in 2012. Prior to dieAngewandte, she received a bachelor's degree in architecture with honors from the Arab Academy for Science and Technology and was awarded by the World Architecture Community for her thesis project.

Shahira has worked for architecture and design firms in New York, Vienna, and Alexandria. In 2018, she received a research fellowship from Terreform ONE where she took part in the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary project which was exhibited at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Triennial: Nature. She strongly believes in the Gesamtkunstwerk ethos of creating a total work of art focusing on interdisciplinary collaboration and experimentation. Her work has been exhibited and published widely in international magazines and events including Outsider Art Fair NY, Evolo, Designboom, among others.

Shahira was born in Minneapolis and grew up in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.

Tom Hennes
Principal & Founder
Tom Hennes
Tom Hennes
Principal & Founder

Tom Hennes, founder of Thinc Design, is one of the most sought-after exhibition designers in the world. He has designed a whole range of museums, visitor centers, zoos, aquaria, art installations and cultural attractions, from New York City, San Francisco, Miami and Chicago, to South Africa, Holland, Viet Nam, China, the Middle East and beyond.

His starting point in founding the studio was to pose the question: What can one exhibit DO? He believes that exhibits can transform people's lives. More than just forms of entertainment or education, powerful exhibits can bring communities together. They can create memorable sensory experiences that encourage people to see the world differently. They can inspire change.

He began as a designer for opera, ballet, concerts and national Broadway tours. The transition to exhibition design was natural: both practices involve transforming space and creating immersive experiences. His early career included Annie and Evita, and productions for the Santa Fe Opera, Carnegie Hall, and the Warsaw Ballet. Corporate clients included AT&T, Walt Disney World, SeaWorld, Universal Studios, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and IBM. He also designed the TED conference stage for nine consecutive years.

Tom's published writing promotes exhibitions as powerful places of personal experience and learning. He has lectured at national and international conferences and is Associate Editor for Curator: The Museum Journal. He has also taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, and Pratt Institute's summer Boisbuchet program. He holds multiple patents for immersive theaters and 3-D projection techniques.

Where did 'Thinc' come from? Tom Hennes Inc.

Tom is an avid cyclist, scuba diver, and licensed pilot.