Tomás Maldonado was an Argentine painter, designer, and thinker, considered one of the main theorists of design theory of the Ulm Model, a design theory developed during Maldonado's tenure at the Ulm School of Design in Germany. Maldonado taught Environmental Design at Politecnico di Milano University, the University of Bologna, and Ulm School of Design in Germany. Maldonado died in 2018 at the age of 96.