Hannah Skye Dunnigan (BRDD 2023, Economics, Industrial Design) is a member of the team of students from Brown and RISD that won the "Most Creative Concept" award at NASA’s 2021 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge. The team was awarded $90,000 to develop concepts and technologies to address the problem of moon dust during space missions.

Read more from the Brown Daily Herald

Each year, the Conference of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) convenes design leaders to "push the design profession forward by asking provocative questions and challenging designers to think about the future." In a presentation titled "A Rejection of the Term ‘Vernacular,’" Javier Syquia (BRDD 2021, Chemistry, Graphic Design) "challenged the design canon and its academies." Javier's presentation is one of a handful highlighted in Eye on Design, the AIGA blog.

Read more on Eye on Design

Houston-based designer Joyce Lin (BRDD 2017, Furniture Design, Geology-Biology), whose "[work] with objects others have discarded ... calls attention to how materials are sourced and resources are used and exploited," is profiled as one of "The Dwell 24: These Are the Designers You Need to Know in 2021."

Read more on Dwell

Annie Chen (BRDD 2023, Behavioral Decision Science & Biology, Industrial Design) and Matthew Derry (BRDD 2022, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Design) are members of the team of Industrial Design students and professors who have developed The BioCycles Project, which imagines a circular design system for recycling RISD's food waste into art and biomaterials.

Kate Reed (BRDD 2021, Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Industrial Design) is one of 10 RISD students and recent alums serving this summer as Maharam Fellows.

The Maharam Fellowship program supports projects that aspire to advance social progress and safeguard the environment. As an artist-in-residence at biotech-focused BosLab in Cambridge, MA, Kate is using the bacterium Violacein to create environmentally-friendly textile dyes.

Read more from RISD Media

Artist and product designer Nikolas Bentel (BRDD 2017 Industrial Design, Modern Culture & Media) explores the world of fashion with a capsule collection inspired by Sandro Botticelli's iconic painting The Birth of Venus.

Read more from Artnet and see information about the project on Nikolas' website

Upon learning that Providence’s annual Pride Month festivities were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors, Justin Li (BRDD 2025, Undeclared, Industrial Design) stepped up to lead a team of volunteers in organizing a month-long series of events including virtual workshops & performances and a Pride parade through downtown Providence.

Read more on News from Brown

A member of the Narragansett tribe, Sherenté Mishitashin Harris' (BRDD 2023 Painting, Ethnic Studies) practice of the Fancy Shawl Dance at powwows honors their cultural heritage while defying gender stereotypes and pushing for acceptance of two-spirit individuals. “I think taking an act as simple as dance and turning it into an act of rebellion is something that surprises people but speaks a universal language,” Harris says. 

Hannah Dunnigan (BRDD 2023, Economics, Industrial Design),Vice President of the RISD Space Design Club and Micro-G NEXT Team Lead, and Design and Manufacturing Lead on the Brown Space Engineering Big-Idea Team, is among Brown and RISD students working on getting three separate projects into outer space.

Angie Kang (BRDD 2021, Literary Arts, Illustration) and Shelby Nicholas (BRDD 2021, Literary Arts, Illustration) are among four seniors in RISD Illustration who reflect on their experiences as students at RISD and the impact their studies have had on their future creative practices.

Read more from RISD Media