May 13, 2025
The School of Architecture, its alumni and students were recognized through national and state level awards from the American Institute of Architects.
May 9, 2025
The College of Design is proud to celebrate the graduates of the spring 2025 class.
Apr 30, 2025
NC State College of Design students were tasked with creating an original B2B application incorporating generative AI to satisfy business and user needs. Using SAS’ tech stack for generative AI, students were asked to understand the data collection and output of generative AI.
Apr 29, 2025
The College of Design is saddened to share that Vincent M. Foote, FIDSA passed away on April 25, 2025. Foote was a longtime member of the College of Design’s industrial design faculty, influencing countless students over his forty-year teaching career.
Apr 17, 2025
College of Design faculty are among those honored for their work in research, engagement and outreach across the university. The Natural Learning Initiative received the Opal Mann Green Award and Dana Gulling received the Outstanding Teacher Award.
Apr 14, 2025
A marionette character controlled by ragdoll gameplay. A rotating game screen embracing the look and feel of vintage theater. Limited computer graphics and limited time. All of these came together via a student team with limitless creativity and a desire to problem-solve to create Maestro’s Theatre, an arcade game developed by MADTech students and displayed at Super Magfest.
Apr 3, 2025
Kelly Umstead, MID faculty member and director of graduate programs for industrial design, was recently named one of NC State’s 2024-25 University Faculty Scholars. We’re excited to highlight Kelly’s achievements in the college and learn more about her.
Apr 2, 2025
As we showcase new faculty, we are excited to highlight Yuanqing “Ching” Tian, an Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at North Carolina State University. With over 11 years of design experience, Ching’s research focuses on custom-fit wearable product design, leveraging 3D scanning technologies, parametric design, and digital fabrication. Her work aims to improve human health and wellness while promoting diversity and inclusion in design. Ching is passionate about exploring human-centered design opportunities through emerging technologies and enhancing ergonomics for diverse populations.
Mar 19, 2025
Demarcus Williams [BGD '03] embodies the NC State spirit of think and do – driven, passionate and committed to giving back. His journey from an undergraduate student navigating college life to a successful marketing and communications professional was supported by a host of faculty in the graphic design program, particularly Kermit Bailey. Now, Williams is establishing a scholarship in Bailey's name, hoping to provide the same support he received to future generations of designers.
Mar 13, 2025
Two students from the college's graphic and experience design program are making their mark on the industry. Megan Mersch is blending artistry with human-centered design to craft seamless digital experiences, while Rebecca Planchart is shaping the future of UX and AI, using design to bridge gaps in public health, government, and emerging technology. Meet GDUSA’s Students to Watch and see how they’re redefining what design can do.
This article was written by Kelsey Bohn and originally appeared in the Technician. See the original. The Gregg Museum of Art and Design opened a new Pop-Up Gallery Lounge entitled “Art2Wear: Through…
Mar 5, 2025
Dr. Valeria López Torres is an assistant professor of graphic & experience design in the College of Design at North Carolina State University. As part of our spotlight on new faculty, we are excited to highlight her expertise in AI, interaction design, and UX/UI, showcasing the interdisciplinary approach she brings to design education and research.
Feb 19, 2025
Led by leaders in the field of landscape architecture, ASLA is developing an updated, profession-wide Climate and Biodiversity Action Plan. The new plan will be an update to the ASLA Climate Action Plan, which was released in 2022, and offer new goals and actions for 2026-2030. The scope of the new plan has been expanded – the climate and biodiversity crises will be treated as equal priorities, and the focus will be on actions that tackle both crises in an equitable way. The ambitious plan seeks to transform the practice of landscape architecture by 2040 through actions taken by ASLA and its members focused on biodiversity and ecological restoration, climate mitigation and adaptation, equity, and economic development. Meg Calkins, FASLA, Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, NC State University, has been named Chair of the Task Force.
Feb 18, 2025
Byungsoo Kim is an assistant professor in industrial design in the NC State College of Design. As part of our spotlight on new faculty, we are excited to highlight his teaching and expertise in product visualization and master’s-level studio projects, showcasing the innovative perspectives he brings to the College of Design.
Feb 17, 2025
The College of Design at NC State University has signed an MOU with the Faculty of Architecture of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma De México (UNAM) to promote academic and research activities between the two institutions and further affirm the value of international collaboration. Collaborations with UNAM will allow the college to extend its involvement in global issues related to urbanization and the environment and translate that knowledge into teaching and practice through the lens of a global framework.
Jan 17, 2025
North Carolina State University (NC State) and Steven Winter Associates, Inc. (SWA) are excited to announce a transformative partnership to revitalize the Center for Universal Design. After nearly 15 years of dormancy, the center is being reborn with a new mission: to support all stakeholders and users in creating accessible, inclusive environments that serve people of all abilities and backgrounds. The newly formed Alliance for Inclusive Design Practice and Research (the Alliance), co-directed by Traci Rose Rider, Ph.D, associate professor of architecture at NC State University, and Victoria Lanteigne, Ph.D., principal of research at SWA, represents a major leap forward in advancing equity in the built environment.
Jan 15, 2025
Eight student teams were recognized at the American Institute of Architects North Carolina Design and Chapter Awards. The School of Architecture was also recognized for teaching excellence through its Educator of the Year, Kamphoefner Prize, F. Carter Williams Gold Medal and Associate Award.
Jan 7, 2025
To Tatiana Veloso, design has a powerful ability to connect individuals to each other and to the places they inhabit. A 2024 graduate of the Master of Landscape Architecture program, her work bridges the gap between art, science, and community engagement.
Nov 25, 2024
On November 21, the College of Design's doctoral programs brought together practitioners from the Doctor of Design and PhD in Design programs to showcase their outstanding research in a poster session and review titled "Design Probes: Research Strands." Students bridge academia and practice across diverse design fields, and the event showcased the collaborative ecosystem that spans the college's four departments and fosters a vibrant environment for interdisciplinary perspectives.
Nov 22, 2024
Lauren Miller, a recent graduate of NC State's College of Design, is an award-winning animator and storyteller. Her animated short Touch won 'Best of the Fest' at the Queer Expressions Film Festival. With a passion for human-centered design and uplifting underrepresented communities, Lauren creates work that resonates with diverse audiences.
Nov 12, 2024
In the spring of 2024, PhD student and instructor Erin White brought students from his D101 Design Thinking course to solve multiple challenges faced at Green Heffa Farms. The students, many of whom are not design majors, addressed challenges such as storage issues, workflow efficiency and social media strategy.
Oct 24, 2024
A partnership between the state and City of Goldsboro has resulted in the completion of the Goldsboro Community Floodprint, and the initial implementation of the plan’s recommendations. The floodprint is a local plan that contains flood mitigation and resilience recommendations developed through public input and planning. Funded by the N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) using the state’s HUD mitigation grant and led by the N.C. State University Coastal Dynamics Design Lab (CDDL), this is the second of ten CDDL/NCORR community floodprints to be completed.
Oct 21, 2024
The College of Design is proud to recognize Matt Checkowski [BGD ‘98] as this year’s distinguished alumnus. Checkowski, vice president of multisensory brand innovation and strategy at Mastercard, will be honored at the Wolfpack Boards Luncheon in October and serve as the College of Design spring 2025 commencement speaker. Matt Checkowski’s work explores the intersections of design, narrative and technology, working across boundaries to elevate and expand storytelling.
Oct 8, 2024
Four students were awarded prizes for their work during the 30th Shawcroft Drawing Competition. Submissions are judged based on students’ use of hand drawing skills in the categories of the design process, documentation and analysis, and presentation.
Sep 25, 2024
In the world of design and public art, serendipity often plays a pivotal role. This was certainly the case for a group of designers and artists who, after initially crossing paths in the College of Design, found themselves working together years later on a significant public art project in Raleigh. This project, which began as an educational initiative, ultimately evolved into a large-scale installation that engages the community on multiple levels.
Sep 17, 2024
The Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental planning is thrilled to share that student teams won national ASLA awards for the fourth year in a row. Since 2020, student teams in the Master of Landscape Architecture program have won 12 awards nationally.
Sep 3, 2024
Industrial Design alumnus Danny Wang [BID '24] recently won the IDSA Student Merit Award for the South District. This means Danny will compete at the International Design Conference & Education Symposium in Austin, Texas September 11-13 for the national award.
Aug 20, 2024
The City of Durham has over 600 “paper streets” - narrow strips of land planned for use as a street, but never built. College of Design students partnered with the city’s Office of Performance and Innovation to bring new life to these previously underutilized spaces, envisioning micro-parks, art installations, educational outdoor spaces, and valuable pedestrian corridors.
Aug 15, 2024
Marc Russo can distinctly remember one of his first introductions to Pink Floyd. He was sitting on the front steps of his friend’s house in 1980, listening to “The Wall”, and he was 11 years old. “It was like a battle cry,” he says. “I didn’t understand much more of the album, but I was connected to this song.” 44 years after that first encounter, Russo, alumnus and associate professor of media arts, design and technology, is connecting his love of Pink Floyd with his professional work in a different way - designing an animation as entry for a contest hosted by the band to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their release of “Dark Side of the Moon.”
Jul 30, 2024
Roxanne Hicklin graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from Salem College. She spent her summers as a sketch artist at Carowinds, capturing quick likenesses of people on the sidewalk before their attention wandered, along with their feet. Following graduation, she was able to parlay that skill into working at Channel 5 News as a courtroom sketch artist, learning graphic arts and computer animation while there. Her ability to be adaptable and always learning on the job led her from Channel 5 to SAS, and finally landing as a volunteer and philanthropist at NC State, where she’s mentoring and nurturing a new generation of artists.
Newton D’Souza, PhD will head up a new doctoral programs unit within the College of Design at North Carolina State University, effective August 12, 2024. D’Souza will oversee the two doctoral programs offered by the college, a traditional PhD in Design program and a hybrid Doctor of Design degree.
Jul 26, 2024
The College of Design at North Carolina State University is pleased to announce the appointment of Audrey Lankford Barnes as the new Department Head of Graphic Design and Industrial Design, effective August 1, 2024. Barnes joins us from James Madison University (JMU), where she served as an Associate Professor and Area Head of Industrial Design in the School of Art, Design and Art History.
Jul 25, 2024
How will technology continue to affect our role as designers? We interviewed two faculty in the College of Design to explore technology’s role as it relates to ideation, human-machine teaming, and the impacts on our rights and resources.
Jul 16, 2024
Samantha Everette's love for photography began while studying abroad in Ghana as an industrial design student. Equipped for the first time with a semi-professional camera, she immediately experienced the joy of capturing portraits of people and their culture. Now, her work is making waves in the Triangle's creative community.
Jul 15, 2024
Following several major grants awarded to the College of Design by the NC State University Foundation, the First Year Experience has blossomed into a program that integrates wellness and mental health awareness into an interdisciplinary design curriculum. The College of Design is a very close-knit community, and most of the first year involves practicing intellectual risk-taking through studio-based learning. The wellness-informed curriculum was created because the freshman experience in design bridges the vast threshold or transition between high school and college where students are expected to routinely fail and subsequently grow through trial and error.
Jun 18, 2024
Students, faculty and alumni attended the NCASLA Conference in Asheville, receiving multiple awards and presenting to professionals from across the state. The Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning sponsored fourteen Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) students in the College of Design to attend the event.
Jun 5, 2024
MADTech Department Head Derek Ham, PhD, has accepted a new position as director of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)'s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) in Pittsburgh, PA, effective September 1.
The 2024 Student Art Sale featured work from over 75 artists across 11 colleges at NC State, granting student artists of all disciplines an opportunity to be represented and share their art. The 2024 Visual Artist Winners are Sean Evans, a second year majoring in graphic and experience design, with the piece “Platinum” for the 2D category, Erin Emott, a graduate student in plant biology, with the piece “Skelly” for the 3D category and Jack E. McKissock, a first year in media arts and technology, with the piece “Sahbabii” for the digital category.
Apr 30, 2024
On a balmy spring evening, in a packed house at Stewart Theater, students from the College of Design and across the university paraded their collections as part of Art2Wear 2024, pulling the audience into another dimension. With each collection, designers led us into their own worlds, from the depths of the ocean to wind-swept dunes, even traveling into outer space. The eight designers who showcased collections of four or more looks came from disciplines across the college, and their fields of study influenced their final looks.
Apr 25, 2024
Students of the Governor Morehead School (GMS) celebrated the redesign of their new Outdoor Learning Center surrounded by community members, builders and NC State students who contributed to the project’s design and much of the labor, both in the shop and on the site.
Apr 19, 2024
To first-year architecture student Ashtyn Thomas, design represents possibility and opportunity. In addition to celebrating her Lumbee identity and community, she is using her passion to design spaces that provide economic stability, cultural enrichment and resilience for indigenous communities throughout North Carolina.
Apr 11, 2024
Raised in the heart of a community ravaged by cartel fighting, Melissa Manjarrez Dominguez witnessed firsthand the spread of violence and fear. Yet, amid the chaos, she also observed something remarkable – the power of certain spaces to bring people together, offering respite from the turmoil and fostering unity.
Apr 8, 2024
Professor of Architecture Thomas Barrie is a recipient of the university’s highest honor for faculty, the Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence. The award is bestowed by the NC State Board of Trustees and recognizes members of the faculty whose careers have demonstrated outstanding achievement and sustained impact in research, teaching or extension and engagement.
Apr 2, 2024
Harnessing her creativity in design and typography, Blair Richardson, a graduate of the graphic design program at NC State, has connected cultures worldwide throughout her successful career. She has lent her design and typography skills to countless clients and projects, from cookbooks to museum exhibitions.
Apr 1, 2024
Educator and researcher M. Elen Deming was presented with the Forster Ndubisi Professional Service Award at the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) Dinner on March 22, 2024.
Mar 27, 2024
This year’s Student Publication, volume 40, explores the intersection of design and spirituality. Editor Steven Nohren dove headfirst into editing the publication as a design studies student, returning full-time after taking a sabbatical during the pandemic. Now, he’s attending talks on AI and approaching professionals to contribute to one of the college’s oldest print media.
Mar 8, 2024
Graphic Design students Erin Secosky and Bhavana Veeravalli were recently featured as part of GDUSA’s 2024 “Students to Watch” list.
Mar 5, 2024
Matthew Peterson is an associate professor of graphic & experience design and one of 22 educators institution-wide chosen as part of the 2023-2024 NC State University Faculty Scholars cohort. The program, begun in 2012 by Chancellor Randy Woodson, recognizes and rewards emerging academic leaders who demonstrate significant academic achievement. Once selected, faculty carry the title for the duration of their appointment.
Feb 27, 2024
School of Architecture student Noelle Robinson was one of five students to win the 2024 SOM Foundation's Robert L. Wesley Award. With her win, Noelle will receive a $10,000 award in addition to a yearlong mentorship program that connects the students with leading BIPOC practitioners and educators.
Feb 8, 2024
Alumnus Joshua Gajownik '04 thought he wanted to be an aerospace engineer. Now, 20 years on, the College of Design graduate is a successful practicing environmental designer. He touches every single detail of the properties he works on, from the branding to the furniture selections, even down to the in-room art.
