"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 series presents all collected student Masters Theses submitted and approved as graduation requirements from each of the seventeen departments offering a graduate degree: Architecture, Ceramics, Digital + Media, Furniture Design, Glass, Graphic Design, Illustration, 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 from 2025
textus complexus, Vishakha Ruhela
TerraShift, Mill Jignesh Shah and Mill Shah
Looped Logic & Wild Lines, Shuting Shao
Plural Vistas, Brooke Shary
(By)Product, Samuel M. Sherman
From In to Out, Jaeyeon Shin
Resonance, Jess D. Skyleson
Pressing into Absence, Linda Sok
Mass to Mineral: Edge Complexity for an Urbanized Floodplain, Maya Sosland
Fervor, Tam c. Stockton
Buddha, Resituated, Min Sun
Body Choice of Women-507, Yilin Sun
Echoes of Scent: Redefining Museum Accessibility, Jiongyi Tang
THE SIXTH INTERFACE: The Integration of Drone Infrastructure with Low-Altitude Landscape, Shicheng Tang
Building From Found, Isabelle K. Troutman
Afrography: Scripting futures anchored in culture & community, Osmond Tshuma
NEW WATER ORDER - THE LEAKY VESSEL, Anand Upadhayay
Rooted in Learning: Eco-Art Pedagogy and Place-Based Learning, Emily Van Heusen
Tierras Celosas, Gery Vargas
bodies collapsing together... together as dust., Catherine J. Wang
OURCRAFT, jie wang
Low Carbon Adaptation through Community Composting, Junrong Wang
The story of stories, Yichu Wang
Mapping Our Tears: RISD CRY, Yimiao Wang
THE BLUE BELOW STILL BREATHES, Yiyi Wang
Where the Ocean Ends, The Mountains Becoming, Yuchen Wang
Stranded in Time: Reawakening the Crook Point Bascule Bridge through Temporality, Zhipeng Wang
A Personal Manual of Escapism, Qing Wen
I Don't Want to Talk About It, Margaryta Winkler
Windbound, Selina Kehuan Wu
Eco-Posthumanism — A Utopian Transformation of Modernist Residence, Shuli Wu
Gamifit, SiShu Wu
Of Primal Substance, Yueting Wu
Rural Dreams, Zongda Wu
Delusional Motel: An Architecture Evoking Negative Symptoms and Disorders, Zesha Xie
Unnatural Nature: A Visual Artist’s Reflection on Myth, Medium, and Feminine Being, Rong Xu
the Red Thread: Objects as Medium, Hsin-Ning Alin Yang
breath, void, ground, Huichun Yang
Chasing The Sacred: A Personal Archive, Yiko Yang
Cohabitation at Threshold: Carpenter House Reimagined for Multispecies Living, Zhixiao Yang
Returning into the Deep Forest--A Methodological Practice Around Memory, Asianness, and Speech, Yu Ye
Objects Into Things: The Ordinary into Extraordinary, Michael K. Yirenkyi
Transplant Transplant(ed) Transplant(ing), So Jung Yoon
Coarse Woody Debris: Growth & Decay, Cody W. Young
The Stream of Life, Yitao Yuan
Ecospiritual Entanglement, Ali Vedad Yüner
To Reflect & to be Reflective: Student Experiences of Critique in Art & Design Higher Education, Jade Seobin Yun
More Than Her Othering Narrative, Jiayi Zhang
The Limits of Knowing: Determinism, Uncertainty, and What’s Beyond the Human Gaze, Xilong T. Zhang
Silent Veins, Yinghan Zhang
Comfort in Contradiction, Yanchen Zhao
Modes of Seeing, Means of Telling, Tina Zhou
Hunting, FEIYANG ZHUANG
Theses from 2024
CODEX OCCULTUS, Aya Abdallah
Dimensional Dialogues, Farida Abousteit
Dimensional Dialogues, Farida Abousteit
ASILI, Husna Abubakar
Unfurling Blue Carpet Memories, Sara Ahli
Detroit Jazz Geographies: Marronage and Speculative Urban Futures, Denzel Amoah
Folding (and Unfolding): A Site-Responsive Strategy for Reusing Construction and Demolition Waste, Jennifer Ansley
DEFINING SELF IN THE URBAN FRONTIER, YIMENG AN
The Future Is Over, Dotan Appelbaum
I am becoming., Dai Asano
Half Dawn, Catherine Ashley
Reform Craft | Re-Form Clay, Katherine Badenhausen
Narrative Structures, Theodore Badenhausen
Tethered by Nourishment - Exploring Sovereignty within an Urban Food Apartheid, Benjamin Bailey
Sircling the Cquare, Latika Balachander
Modern Times, Will Beattie
Graphic Desire, Michelle Belgrod
Garment Making as a Practice of Freedom, Emily Bennison
New Craft: Craft Practices in the Digital Era, Paulina Bereza
Landing: body, site, material, Renata Berta
JUGAATRONICS, Monica Bhyrappa
Umbrella and Jellyfish, yanran bi
Room to Grieve: The Space of Solace in Public Life, Lauren Blonde
Never Real Historians, Emily Bluedorn
Frontier: Land, Architecture, and Abstraction, Jacob Boatman
Always Been This Way, Joanna Booth
Intangible shells, Elena Bulet
Trans-species Communication, Fueled by Efforts of Remediation, Naomi Canino
Winter Solstice, Jingwen Cao
Revitalizing Decay, Owen Carey
Rhythm of Space, Brian Carrillo
RECLAIMED BY ROOTS, Dongyang Chen
On the Impulse to Notate, Lydia Chodosh
Guilty Pleasure: Women's Perception of Health, Body Image, and Femininity, Irene *Yi-Han Chung
A Living Storyscape, Vivian Combariza
Searching for the Hyperobject: Crystals as Transscalar Vehicles, Jay Costello
Emotional Factory, Yukun Cui
Naturify 2300, Yarina Yiwei Dai
Discovering The Lightness of Being, Yuemeng Dai
The Importance of Art Programming for Underserved Youth, Aja Delgado
The Day the Door Flew Open, Clara Delgado
Unconditioning Air, Weijia Deng
Rejected Manuscripts, Yangqi Deng
Threading with Hair // Intertwined Stories, Cloris Ding
This Is For You: A handbook for design students, Gabriel Drozdov
Better Together, Jack Dumala