Invited Speakers

Valerie Fletcher has been Executive Director since 1998 of the Institute for Human Centered Design (IHCD), an international educational and design non-profit organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA and  founded in 1978 as Adaptive Environments. The organizational mission is to advance the role of design in expanding opportunity and enhancing experience for people of all ages and abilities through excellence in design. Fletcher writes, lectures and works internationally.  She oversees a wide range of educational activities including technical assistance, design guides, symposia, publications, websites, conferences, courses and competitions as well as inter-disciplinary design projects for schools, cultural facilities, adaptive reuse, public realm and housing and IHCD's User/Expert Lab.

She is a Special Advisor on Inclusive Design to the governments of France and Singapore, the Open Society Institute and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Fletcher has a master's degree in ethics and public policy from Harvard University.  The Boston Society of Architects awarded her the Women in Design award in 2005; she's a Trustee of the Boston Architectural College and Co-Chairs the Design Industry Group of Massachusetts.