Rebeca Méndez is an artist, designer, and Chair at UCLA, Design Media Arts, where she is founder and director of the CounterForce Lab, a research and fieldwork studio for art, design and environment. Her research and practice investigates design and media art in public space, critical approaches to public identities and landscape, and artistic projects based on field investigation methods. Méndez is known for her career-long commitment to ‘design and art as a social force,’ and her interests and initiatives are a bridge between art, design and science, and demonstrate a commitment to the environment and a sustainable future. In 1996 she founded Rebeca Méndez Studio, a multidisciplinary practice focused on brand strategy and design, architectural immersive spaces, experience design, and book design. Méndez has the ability to lead large teams and design award winning global brands, including for IBM and Motorola, as well as design intimate and exquisitely crafted books for cultural clients, including Bill Viola for the Whitney Museum and Suprasensorial for MOCA. Through her studio, she has created projects for clients such as Morphosis Architects, Gehry Partners, The Getty Center, MOCA, Guggenheim Berlin, SFMOMA, and artist Bill Viola. Other professional experience include her appointment as senior partner/creative director of Brand Integration Group (BIG) for Ogilvy & Mather, Los Angeles (2000–2003). She has received significant recognition including an honorary doctorate from Art Center College of Design (2019); inclusion into the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2019), inclusion in the One Club Creative Hall of Fame (2017); 2017 Medal of AIGA, and the 2012 National Design Award in Communication Design. Solo exhibitions: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Hammer Museum, Nevada Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Oaxaca, Mexico. Rebeca has won the three most significant awards in the field of design: The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Communication Design, 2012, the AIGA Medal in 2017, and induction to the One Club Hall of Fame in 2017. This triple crown would be worthy enough on its own, more than worthy, absolutely exceptional, but when you add in that Rebeca is the first and only Latina to win each one of these, much less all three, the achievement is towering.