About Me

What design studios have you taken in the past? Which did you enjoy most?

I am a new grad student at RISD so this is my first design studio here. In undergrad I took a year of architecture design studios.

Do you have a background, a double major, or a previous degree in a discipline other than ID?

I got my B.A. from Middlebury College in Vermont. I was a double major in Studio Art and Religion, focusing on sculpture and eastern religions. My senior project for religion was a paper comparing Buddhist visualization mediation with a western scientific understanding of how the brain processes visual information. My senior project for sculpture was a series of installations in the art building. They were all about bringing attention to the movement of air and light through the building, about making these largely invisible processes concrete and visible.

What are your strongest skills in terms of craft/visual communication?

I’m a pretty good builder/fabricator. I love organizing information, but my drawing skills needs some work.

What skills would you most like to build during this course?

Designing with a sustainable business model in mind.

What areas are you most and least interested in working on during this course?

Most: Designing for positive social impact and not just business viability

Least: Why is this so hard to answer? I guess I don’t want to spend too much time working on form and aesthetics. I think they’re important, but given the limited time frame of the class, I’d like to focus on the entrepreneurial aspects of the process.

So you have experience working on social entrepreneurship projects in the past? If so, what were they?

I was the Program Director of the Steel Yard for six years before coming to RISD. The Steel Yard is an industrial art center on the west side of Providence…check it out! (www.thesteelyard.org)

Do you have long-term goals for yourself in terms of social entrepreneurship? If so, what are they?

I hope I can make it a central part of my work. I believe in design triage, a sort of hierarchy that keeps designing for our critical needs and reshaping our fundamental understanding of things on the forefront of our minds. Let’s focus on our collective health and wellbeing before we spend a ton of time and energy redesigning BBQ grills and stereos (unless of course we redesign those things in a way that addresses a critical need).

Do you prefer team or individual projects?

I prefer individual projects with a lot of group feedback. While I enjoy group dynamics, how my own projects come together is always a bit of a mystery to me—it’s generally not so linear. Working as a group often feels disruptive to my workflow and I have a harder time putting pieces together.