Alumni Stories & Careers
Our alumni are entrepreneurs, design strategists, and researchers working across design, marketing, education, and more. While in the program, you'll have multiple opportunities to hone your professional practice and build your network to hit the ground running upon graduation.
Featured Alumni
Amanda Schurr '17
Amanda Schurr is founder and CEO of Design for Work, doing communications, consulting, education, design and systems thinking, and creative problem-solving focused on the future of work. She edited a book with Chris Riley (former head of planning for Wieden + Kennedy and mass-com at Apple) entitled After the Mass Age. Amanda holds a B.A. in Film Theory/Criticism from New College of Florida.
Danielle Olson '13
Danielle Olson is Communications and Content Manager at Hatch Innovation, and board member of Socrates Cafe. Danielle began work at Hatch as a fellow in 2014, looking for a place to exercise her passion for social entrepreneurship. Concurrently, she was working independently as a Visual Strategist, making the complex digestible for social enterprises and non-profits.
Dave Laubenthal '13
Dave Laubenthal is Director of Creative Services at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Previously he was Launch Director at Design Museum Portland, and designed PNCA’s BridgeLab for his MFA thesis. He has exhibited in ShowPDX multiple years.
Crystal Rome '15
Crystal Rome is a Senior Experience Designer at the Business Innovation Factory in Providence, RI specializing in business model design and prototyping, service design, and ethnographic research. She utilizes complex systems modeling, critical analysis, user centered-design, and collaborative problem solving to investigate the edge of what is possible and find ways to wrangle large scale challenges into human scaled action.
Opportunities
Designed Futures
Our signature event, every other Wednesday Designed Futures talks are essentially "high IQ happy hours," bringing together our students, faculty, partners, and Portland's creative community to engage with prominent visiting artists, designers, and social innovators. We work with partners like Design Week Portland, Design Research MeetUp, CHIFOO, Post Carbon Institute, Illahee, Ecotrust, Sustainable Northwest, and others to bring provocative guests who are launching promising initiatives.
Design Week Portland
We host a number of events for the citywide Design Week Portland which bring design professionals to campus. In 2018 we hosted Randy Gragg's “One City, Many Futures” a rapid-fire evening of soon-to-be-built buildings and landscapes presented by their designers. And the DWP version of our regular Designed Futures meetup/happy hour celebrated with Chris Riley his new book After the Mass-Age, addressing the shifting structure of mass media.
Radicle Magazine
Radicle is a magazine conceived, edited, designed, and produced annually by the students in the graduate Design Systems programs. In Issue 02, Connecting in an Imperfect World, we are asking questions, sharing insights, and exploring the beauty and ingenuity of our world by focusing in on connection: connecting to ourselves, to each other and to the environment around us.
This issue of Radicle magazine offers examples of artists, entrepreneurs and ordinary people working to make meaningful connections in the world, one imperfect person to another.
Internships
Students gain professional experience via internships, projects, and employment with these institutions and organizations.
350.org
Albertina Kerr Centers
Amplified by Design
APANO
ASCETA
Black Parent Initiative
Business Innovation Factory
Caldera Arts
Center for Genomic Gastronomy
Centro Cultural
City of Portland
Columbia Sportswear
Design Museum Portland
Design Week Portland
EG Robotics
ECONorthwest
Empirical
Environmental Health Clinic
Float On
Fulbright Association
Growing Gardens
Hacienda Community Development Corp
Hack Oregon
Hatch Innovation Lab
Intel
Intertwine Alliance
JOIN
Lionheart Consulting
Mercy Corps
MyVoice Music
Newell Brands
OMSI
Oregon Health Sciences University
Otherness Studio
PHLUSH
PSU - Urban Studies
Resologics
Samara Group
Shaxpir
Siteworks
SOLV
Sustainable Northwest
SYPartners
The Green School
The Right Brain Initiative
Union Creative Agency
University of Vermont
UserOnboard
Vanilla Bikes
Waldport High School
Weber State University
Wieden + Kennedy
Works Partnership Architecture
Get in touch
Get in touch with MFA Collaborative Design/MA Design Systems Chair, Skye Moret to learn more about the program.
Email