BFA in Visual Communication Design, Dr. Shariaty University, Tehran, Iran, 2020
Niloufar Abdolmaleki is an artist and designer and she is
currently pursuing her MFA in Design at University of California,
Davis. Her research interests include the experiential and
environmental graphic design. She is interested in creating
social interventions and public arts; sparking human
interactions. She greatly enjoys working on multidisciplinary
projects, the ones that involve creative thinking and
visualization strategies.
B.Sc., in Fashion Design and Technology from BGMEA University of Fashion and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Hafsa is an M.F.A. in Design student at the University of
California, Davis. Her interest is in fashion design. She
worked on sustainable design to create zero-waste patterns,
upcycling garments, and exploring ethnic clothing to design
contemporary fashion.
In her M.F.A thesis, she is planning to expand her research on
functional apparel and 3D printing.
B.A., English Literature, University of California, MercedM.A., Interdisciplinary Humanities (emphasis on 1930s Cinema and Fashion), University of California, Merced
Cristina (Cris) Gomez is an M.F.A. Design student at the
University of California, Davis. Her academic background includes
Literature, Cinema, and Fashion studies of 1930s America.
Cristina’s area of focus is on costume exhibitions and on the
analysis of clothing’s social role. Her planned thesis project is
an exhibition on the Central Valley of California’s field
worker’s clothing to discuss their working social
conditions.
B.A., Fine Art, School of the Art Institute, Chicago
Elyse is an interdisciplinary designer whose work reimagines the
land use of decommissioned golf courses in the Western United
States. Joining experiences in sustainable fabrication,
environmental and social justice and ecology, Elyse creates a
speculative tool kit for converting the former courses into
public spaces. Through this work she inserts methods for
restorative landscapes, reintroduction of native plants and
wildlife habitats and facilitating community stewardship to
improve recreational access to underserved populations.
Justin Marsh is a visual artist and designer with an expansive
history as an exhibition specialist. Over the past decade, he has
supported the inauguration and growth of multiple museum
institutions and gallery cooperatives in Northern California. His
practice at UC Davis intersects interior and exterior spaces of
cultural production, seeking to embrace marginal, liminal, and
heterotopic territory. His research is informed by critical
design, counter-archival methods, and emerging exhibition and
urban design strategies.
Before starting the MFA in Design and just after graduating from
a BA in Industrial Design, I became specifically interested in
the field of Jewelry Design, and I have been exploring different
approaches in ideation and design for mass production. I am also
designing and making jewelry as an independent designer, with
several jewelry collections, mostly inspired by the history,
culture, and art of my ancient country, Iran.
I believe Design is a way of changing the world to be a better
place. A better world may have a different definition for
different people: perhaps an ergonomic chair or an Interface for
a pioneer application, each can make one’s world a better place
to live in. Over a decade of professional and academic experience
has equipped me with extensive collaborative skills and creative
methods in visual communication design.
B.A., Fashion Design, Universidad Pontificia, Bolivariana
As a designer, Alejandra has been interested in exploring,
performing and reflecting on alternative practices that can
derive from her academic background. This has led her to
collaborate with interdisciplinary teams to propose and
experiment in projects related to sustainability and circular
economy, development of alternative materials, education and
learning, geosciences communication, craft-art-design
interaction, collaborative arts and creative activism.
During the MFA she will be exploring material design, its
lifecycles and possible applications.
B.S., Apparel Design, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Quinessa Stibbins is an apparel designer and dancer from St. Paul
Minnesota. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a
BS in Apparel Design and a minor in social justice. She then
worked for a dance costume company called Kelle Company for
two years. Quinessa is passionate about designing through a
social justice lens and using both apparel and dance for
storytelling.
B.A., Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
Pachia’s (Puh-chee-uh) design work is informed by her experiences
as a Hmong-American navigating culture, art, trauma, and society
with a pluriversal imagination that speaks from Hmong-centered
knowledge. She is a paj ntaub maker exploring concepts of
indigeneity, diaspora, and dress through an interdisciplinary
practice in textiles, fashion, digital media, and exhibition
design to create place and space for marginalized communities.
B.S., Architecture and Ubranism, Ricardo Palma University, Lima, Peru
Ofelia is an M.F.A. in Design student at the University of
California, Davis. Her background includes architecture,
landscaping, furniture, and digital fabrication. Her area of
interest is focused on sustainable design and interactive design,
in pursuit of creating a merge between nature and technology.
Marcy Wacker is a designer and educator interested in exploring
design’s “gaps”—overlooked, avoided, and ignored spaces. Her work
acknowledges and amplifies forgotten objects, people, and ideas,
investigates how they reveal and influence our human experience,
and reimagines how we teach design and why.
B.F.A., Painting and Drawing, School of the Art Institute, Chicago
Edward Whelan comes to Davis from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he
worked as an exhibition designer for the Philbrook Museum of Art.
While working on a number of exhibitions at Philbrook, Whelan
became interested in co-design and how those methods could be
brought into museums. With close to 10 years experience in the
museum field, Whelan plans to continue his relationships with
museums and will be the lead designer for the upcoming “All on
the Line: William T.
