"The first graduate program at RISD was established in 1957 with the MS in Art Education with the first MFA programs starting in 1961. We now have 16 graduate programs with 2 more being added in 2018.The core of any graduate program is concentrated and advanced study in an academic or professional field. Compared with undergraduate studies, graduate education is focused on producing original contributions to a field, based on research and advance practice. Graduate programs also provide the opportunity for more applied experience via internships, teaching or research. This is essential for RISD’s commitment to furthering the importance of art and design in the world and in producing distinguished professional and academic leaders." -Pradeep Sharma, RISD Provost 2014-2017
This collection presents student Masters Theses submitted and approved as graduation requirements from each of the 16 departments offering a graduate degree: Architecture, Ceramics, Digital + Media, Furniture Design, Glass, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interior Architecture, Jewelry + Metalsmithing, Landscape Architecture, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Teaching + Learning in Art and Design, and Textiles. Postgraduate writing and research is also included.
These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Theses/Dissertations from 2018
This is public work, Nick Adam
Domestic disorientation, Marisa Adesman
Evoking the divine : from secular to sacred and back again, Dragos Tiberiu Alexandru
Environmental diversity for student residence life, Jiaying Bai
Life after dark, Austin Bamford
Architecture as water-human mediator, Hui Bao
Autonomous vehicle futures : designing experiences that enable trust and adoption, Jeremy Bass
Creating connection in a digital society, Mariah Bennett
Haptic wonder : the sensation of exquisite craft, Anjuli Berstein
Ghost, a stone, Audrey Blood
Between gods and animals : deconstructing heteronormative masculines pursuit to sustain power, Shawn Bush
Haunt : casual surrealism, Cara Buzzell
The space in between : liminal space, Wei-Chun Cheng
Me too park : inform, connect, heal, Xiao Chen
Placefulness, Ellen Christensen
Revealing context & complexity in urban historic sites, Simin Chu
Foodways for earthlings : recipes and tools for eating in extreme environments, Maggie Coblentz
Opine : positioning architecture, Kevin Crouse
Amending the idle : an analysis of urban idle spaces + third places, Paige Davidson
Curious things, Allison Davis
Ouroboros, Christopher Dove Drury
Chaos and order, Jie Du
Archinaut : Archinaut design laboratory office manual, Joseph Echavarria
Idiosyncratic uniform, Erica Efstratoudakis
Pretend power, Rosemary Engstrom
Matriarchy, M. Camila Escobar Vélez
Anachropomorphism!, Carson Evans
The evolution of ornament, Charlotte Ngaio Fairless
Living with impoundment, Chuxiong Feng
Zoom-out : expansion of pedagogical approaches within moving image education, Thomas Flint
To see again, Ada Goldfeld
Lingua Franca, Tatiana Gomez Gaggero
On the edge of being, Zoe Gross
Space in between : finding a third space for art education & creative community, Denise Gunter
Reveal the aura : RISD contemplative atrium, Shuyi Guo
Wild power, Iris Han
The contested landscapes of Mnemosyne : constructing maps of memory, Valeria Rachel Herrera
Moments of rotary motion : temporary use in vacant industrial heritage architecture, Xuecheng He
We can HOST! : preparing Miami's neighborhoods for an amphibious future, Dongning Huang
Woven curvature, Yuhao Jiang
Summer peaches and salt-tinged fog, Carolina Jiménez
Really clean no problems at all, Christina Johnston
Sky well, Molly Kaderka
Letsqube, Biniam Assegid Kebede
Throwing architecture to the sea : discipline out of context, Andrea Kelly
Tightrope walking on the red lines, Arghavan Khosravi
Transporting eating architecture, Margaret Kiladjian
Learning environments of our stories, Grace M. Kim
The long forgotten city element, Yun Chu King
The bird's eye view, Ipek Kosova
Preventing lonely death, Hyun Kyu Lee and Menghan Zhou
Floating Miami, Jiongye Li
Facade of democracy : realizing the architecture of the fourth wall, Johnny Yueh Han Lin
Möbius system : a pseudo-world made from pseudo-science, Xinye Lin
Reviving floodplain in Miami, Shangyuan Li
Journey through the wasteland, Songlin Li
BioVice: a survival tool company, Chubai Liu
Field guide : collected studies of a symbiont, Jennifer Livermore
Tiny Diasporas, Angela Lorenzo
Designing for disaster resilience in Puerto Rico, Aislin Mac Donald
The room : the space between, Adelaide Cushing Mackintosh
In exchange, Anna McNeary
For a better normal : fostering the informal sector in post-hurricane Puerto Rico, as a pathway for economic stabilization, Jonathan W. Melendez Davidson
Capes make the man, Khalid Mezaina
Left hand stories, Saif Mhaisen
Castles in the sky, Iva Milovanović
Fungible commodities, Kelly Taylor Mitchell
Rising above disruption, Paola Alexandra Mondino
In between, Farinaz Moslemi
The present, Ann Motonaga
Providence productivity framework : ideas for a network of sites rethinking productivity in Providence, Patricia Noto
Reading rooms, Jinhwa Oh
Very-Asian variation, Nicholas Oh
Space, Junk, Brandon Olsen
Hyperlink : connecting space, time, language, and technology, Marie Otsuka
Pienso en ti, Gina Gwen Palacios
Columns of some kind : kinetic, structural, formal, periodic & interactive elements of architecture, Jhanani Palanismay
From armor to augmentation : reclaiming my everyday body, Molly Palecek
Redundancy for change, Kyuyeon Park
Wastescape : stitching the process of natural decomposition back into the public realm, Yu Pei
Bound by // to // in earth, Lila Pickus
Harmless Studio, David Thomas Pittman
A natural circus, Cecilia Plasencia
A monument thesis, Graham Rice
Joy through layered tension : convergent fire-escapes fulfill a new community, Luca Rivelli
Constellations, Maria Rull Bescós
In a distant land, Ohad Sarfaty
Four projects, K. Sarrantonio
A third thing : an exploration of black hair in architectural design, Christina B. Schaller
Dispatches from planet nowhere, Aaron Field Simmons
Radically normal : the menstruation issue, Kathryn Smiley
Talking to computers, Jen Spatz
Defining contagion : examining imagination as a source of the infection in print studios, Joshua Tangen
The dream alchemy, Yue Tan
Purpose after tragedy, Elena Tepavac
Circle, loops, straps, tracks, towels, Laura Thatcher
Squishy Play, Lauren Traugott-Campbell
A place for plastics : bioplastics, bacteria and our thoughtless acts, Megan Valanidas
Cosmic whatever, cement gardens, luminous shade, Winifred Vaughan