The 2012 Fellows
The 2012 Maharam STEAM Fellows interned with a wide range of organizations that readily recognize the tangible contributions art and design students make to the work they do. Read more about the inaugural group of fellows and the internship partners who welcomed them during the summer of 2012.
Ayodhya Ouditt | NPR Science
BFA 2013 Industrial Design Ayodhya will focus on the creation of visual storytelling techniques, which can take complex topics in science and health and make them understandable, engaging and accessible to the public. Ayodhya is an artist, writer and designer, focusing on social entrepreneurship – using design principles to address complex social and environmental problems. Science and nature are his obsessions, and illustration and photography are his tools for storytelling.
BFA 2013 Industrial Design Ayodhya will focus on the creation of visual storytelling techniques, which can take complex topics in science and health and make them understandable, engaging and accessible to the public. Ayodhya is an artist, writer and designer, focusing on social entrepreneurship – using design principles to address complex social and environmental problems. Science and nature are his obsessions, and illustration and photography are his tools for storytelling.
Olivia Foss | National Defense University, STAR-TIDES
MID 2012 Industrial Design Olivia’s project will focus on international and domestic development efforts, using strategic design thinking to effect sustainable, positive change in the way we make, produce and consume. STAR-TIDES (Sharing To Accelerate Research-Transformative Innovation for Development and Emergency Support) is a research effort that promotes sustainable support to stressed populations. Olivia earned an undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts (with a focus on New Media studies) from the Evergreen State College and is interested in how new forms of participatory engagement can help guide and inform the design process. Olivia was raised in Fargo, ND and issues relating to changing relationships between farmer, food and environment are of special interest to her. Her master’s thesis borrowed techniques from the disciplines of foresight, performance art and critical design to speculate about the future of trash, food and farming as it relates to the maintenance of soil health.
MID 2012 Industrial Design Olivia’s project will focus on international and domestic development efforts, using strategic design thinking to effect sustainable, positive change in the way we make, produce and consume. STAR-TIDES (Sharing To Accelerate Research-Transformative Innovation for Development and Emergency Support) is a research effort that promotes sustainable support to stressed populations. Olivia earned an undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts (with a focus on New Media studies) from the Evergreen State College and is interested in how new forms of participatory engagement can help guide and inform the design process. Olivia was raised in Fargo, ND and issues relating to changing relationships between farmer, food and environment are of special interest to her. Her master’s thesis borrowed techniques from the disciplines of foresight, performance art and critical design to speculate about the future of trash, food and farming as it relates to the maintenance of soil health.
Giles Holt | City of Providence
MArch 2014 ArchitectureAs a Maharam Fellow, Giles is working with the city of Providence, RI to find effective methodologies to engage residents in creative problem solving. As a student Giles organized A Better World by Design, an annual three-day conference focused on the power of design to positively affect our built and social systems. While working at Sasaki Associates last summer Giles designed an open platform for city level policy makers to publish and receive feedback from residents as they work through policy decisions. Giles’ interest in the Maharam STEAM Fellowship stems from an unrealized level of constructive engagement with existing inquiry generated by RISD and Brown to affect policy decisions for Providence, RI.
MArch 2014 ArchitectureAs a Maharam Fellow, Giles is working with the city of Providence, RI to find effective methodologies to engage residents in creative problem solving. As a student Giles organized A Better World by Design, an annual three-day conference focused on the power of design to positively affect our built and social systems. While working at Sasaki Associates last summer Giles designed an open platform for city level policy makers to publish and receive feedback from residents as they work through policy decisions. Giles’ interest in the Maharam STEAM Fellowship stems from an unrealized level of constructive engagement with existing inquiry generated by RISD and Brown to affect policy decisions for Providence, RI.
Joseph Escobar | City of Providence
BFA 2013 Industrial DesignJoe and his team at RISD’s 2nd Life (an art supply and materials recycling source) meet with key leaders in the public and private sectors to determine creative ways that upcycling (the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality / higher environmental value) can be integrated into the community. The goals are to empower youth and reduce landfill waste. Born and raised in Southern California (a westcoaster at heart), Joe has a twin and is the youngest of five children. Every summer he reads the Calvin and Hobbes anthology, enjoys cooking and loves eating.
BFA 2013 Industrial DesignJoe and his team at RISD’s 2nd Life (an art supply and materials recycling source) meet with key leaders in the public and private sectors to determine creative ways that upcycling (the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality / higher environmental value) can be integrated into the community. The goals are to empower youth and reduce landfill waste. Born and raised in Southern California (a westcoaster at heart), Joe has a twin and is the youngest of five children. Every summer he reads the Calvin and Hobbes anthology, enjoys cooking and loves eating.
Samantha Dempsey | Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation
BFA 2013 IllustrationSamantha will use this unique opportunity with the world’s only imbedded design group to function within a live clinical setting to participate in a learning process where designers and doctors work together to create ideas and products that are neither art nor medicine. Samantha is a rising senior in illustration and the daughter of two engineers in Massachusetts. She studies healthcare at Brown University in addition to her studio courses at RISD and believes that the best ideas come through collaboration. Samantha is always on the lookout for the gray areas where art and science combine and once designed a card game based on early Victorian germ theory. Her favorite microorganisms are daphnia.
BFA 2013 IllustrationSamantha will use this unique opportunity with the world’s only imbedded design group to function within a live clinical setting to participate in a learning process where designers and doctors work together to create ideas and products that are neither art nor medicine. Samantha is a rising senior in illustration and the daughter of two engineers in Massachusetts. She studies healthcare at Brown University in addition to her studio courses at RISD and believes that the best ideas come through collaboration. Samantha is always on the lookout for the gray areas where art and science combine and once designed a card game based on early Victorian germ theory. Her favorite microorganisms are daphnia.
Andreas Nicholas | GlobeMed
BFA 2013 Film/Animation/Video Andreas will collect and communicate the incredible stories that embody the change that the GlobeMed network promotes. GlobeMed is a network of university students that partners with grassroots organizations around the world to improve the health of people living in poverty. Through their involvement today, students commit to a life of leadership in global health and social justice. Andreas believes in the power of stories and that artists and designers are uniquely positioned to tell these stories in ways that are beautiful and accessible to wide audiences. As the son of two architects, design has been an intrinsic part of his life since birth. Through a small documentary that he produced with Paul Farmer on Partners in Health’s new hospital in Haiti, his involvement with GlobeMed, and his studies of and visits to Haiti, he has come to realize that health is not simply a medical issue but a human factor that allows people to live well. His goal is to use film and design to convey this idea by evaluating the root causes of issues through ethnographic filmmaking, including these stories as an integrated piece of the data that aid organizations use to evaluate where they place their funding and ultimately adding a humanistic layer to information that is so often simplified and pared down.
BFA 2013 Film/Animation/Video Andreas will collect and communicate the incredible stories that embody the change that the GlobeMed network promotes. GlobeMed is a network of university students that partners with grassroots organizations around the world to improve the health of people living in poverty. Through their involvement today, students commit to a life of leadership in global health and social justice. Andreas believes in the power of stories and that artists and designers are uniquely positioned to tell these stories in ways that are beautiful and accessible to wide audiences. As the son of two architects, design has been an intrinsic part of his life since birth. Through a small documentary that he produced with Paul Farmer on Partners in Health’s new hospital in Haiti, his involvement with GlobeMed, and his studies of and visits to Haiti, he has come to realize that health is not simply a medical issue but a human factor that allows people to live well. His goal is to use film and design to convey this idea by evaluating the root causes of issues through ethnographic filmmaking, including these stories as an integrated piece of the data that aid organizations use to evaluate where they place their funding and ultimately adding a humanistic layer to information that is so often simplified and pared down.
RISD Maharam Fellows 