An accomplished lighting designer, educator, inventor and lighting manufacturer, Sy Shemitz is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He has taught lighting to architecture students at Penn, Princeton, Yale, R.I.S.D., Tulane and Cornell.

For 40 years, Sy was the principal of the lighting design group, Sylvan R. Shemitz Associates. He is also the founder and CEO of elliptipar, maker of high performance asymmetric luminaires since 1976. Sy’s career has been marked by numerous lighting and product design awards and he is the holder of

more than 30 mechanical and design patents.

Sy is the originator of furniture mounted lighting for open plan offices (1965). He passionately believes that the best way to light these spaces is with furniture integrated lighting that balances the brightness of the micro environment (the individual’s work area) and the macro environment (the ceiling and surrounding vertical surfaces). His early designs provided downlight on the desk (task) and uplight on the ceiling (ambient) from a single fluorescent lamp. The Tambient line represents his latest vision for task ambient lighting.

A graduate of Penn State University’s Architectural Engineering program, Dave began his career as an architectural lighting designer for The Ballinger Company in Philadelphia. He went on to serve for seven years as Director of Lighting Design for HOK in Dallas before joining Sylvan R. Shemitz Associates in 1991.

Dave’s designs have garnered numerous awards including several International Design Awards of Merit and the prestigious

Edwin F. Guth Memorial Award of Excellence, and his work has earned him recognition as a Professional member of The International Association of Lighting Designers.

Responsible for creating Tambient’s initial product offering, Dave continues to conceive and direct the development of tools for lighting the workplace. His inventive work is the subject of numerous patent applications that define the Tambient line.

Jim Melling holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design degree from Pratt Institute.

Jim began his career designing task ambient luminaires for Keene Lighting. He joined Sylvan R. Shemitz Associates in 1980 and served as project manager for a number of large task ambient lighting installations.

Before joining the Tambient team, Jim served as a product designer for elliptipar, developing the Ensconce, 4x and Duplex lines. His engineering work has been honored with a U.S. Design Patent and two IBD product design awards. Jim is also an award winning tradeshow display designer.

We credit Jim as the author of the Tambient acronym.