"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 from 2021
When art education meets environmental issues: the interconnectedness of art and science, Eunhyung Julie Chung
Polyrhythms, Kevin Costante
Records of (un)learning, Gregory Deddo
Loose threads / Hilos sueltos, Estefanía de Ros
Becoming a precipice: the liminality of queer cruising, Chance DeVille
Community, harana & karaoke: towards a theatrical design, Ryan Diaz
Personal positioning system, Laura Diez de Baldeon
In and of the body, Nicola DiFusco
The Broken Thought Machine [broh-kuhn thawt muh-sheen], Michael Dispensa
Dal and rice, Anushka Divecha
Taking care, John Dixon
Cultural acupuncture: decentralization and deocratization in Chinese exhibition design, Ruohan Duan
What do I see between 2 to 8 o'clock, Youtian Duan
Katti-Batti : a digital tool for young adolescents to transgress the limitations of gender socialization through empathy & friendship, Chetan Dusane
Beyond conscious: the knowing of self-owned anxiety, WenYu Du
Rebuilt the fading vicinity, Yifan Du
The portal : a tool for uncertain times, Sophie Engel
Parentheses asterisk ellipses, Everett Epstein
Blur the boundaries: an aerial coexisting system for birds and humans on rooftops, Yu Fang
Algal alterity : a study of Florida's algae-crisis-culture, Katelyn Flood
Dress your chair, Yumeng Gai
Adaptive reuse as evidence of scientific progress: recontextualizing a space for growing knowledge, Kayci Gallagher
Art can empower children and lead them to think seriously about significant critical issues, Jialu Gao
Holding: speculative infrastructure for fire mitigation, Ian George
Defining the diva: celebrity, feminism & performance in popular culture, Rachel Glago
This trash is someone else's problem, Lauren Goodman
Mars is for fags, Justin Quaid Grubb
Creative learning: art as a language for students with diverse learning styles, Lana Gunn
Architecture of aging care: a field through architectural innovation, Eve Huining Guo
Rewilding Seattle: a green network for both humans and non-humans, Zhouqian Guo
Preserving modern architecture & new railway infrastructure in New Delhi, Yash Sahai Gupta
Building empathy at the intersection of art, nature, & culture: a field guide for art educators, Jasmine Gutbrod
Reclaiming modern architecture: an urban visual narrative of Kuwait City, Yara Hadi
Unraveling the living: reframing cramped housing as a social living, Dong-zoo Han
An invitation, Ashley Harris
Beyond pasta: understanding Italian American culinary culture in Federal Hill, Chufan He
Going back, Zhiyi Hilary He
Prepositions, Alexis Hill
Manahatta, Nicholas Hinckfuss
Refiguring relations, Daphne Hsu
Inter - : design for fostering action-oriented awareness towards sustainable transition, Elena Danlei Huang
Move in the internet, Jennifer Ziyuan Huang
Living objects, Katie Tzu Hua Huang
Contemporary art warfare, Zongxian Huang
Augmented city, Xing Huan
Things that ignore, Sean Walker Hutton
The art of microbe maintenance: value and applications in design, Yujin Hwang
Mutable landscapes: diversity through the lens of the earth's biomass, Ilya Iskhakov
Distilling the Narragansett Bay, Parker Ives
Out of bounds, Luciana Iwamoto
The TEK-way: traditional ecological knowledge: a catalyst to building resilient communities, Smera Rose Jacob
Feral devices : an additive fabrication, Kat Jarvinen
Woven healing: reimagining the rural health center, Mahasweta Jayachandran
Wounds need air, Camilla Jerome
Transforming islands: a living memorial for the Marshall Islands, Chengwen Jiang
Reimagining the damage: an exploration on urban brownfield regeneration strategies, Jun Jiang
Living · Sharing · Connecting : rebirth of Longchang Apartments Heritage Community, Linhong Jiang
Migrating architecture: vernacular futurism, Yichu Jiang
The reenactment : "object" as performance, Yue Jiang
A hypothetical debate, Talya Kantro
Re-foresting: cohabitation of human and trees, Chengyu Ke
Filmic landscape: a performative space with multi-medium, Zhihong Ke
A house on a street: a proposal for the multi-generational house in America, Ian Johnson Kienbaum
The second home: breaking the cycle of lonely death, Woohee Kim
Play & protest, James Kloote
Breaking the mold: a journey of the brick, Sumanth Krishna
Balance the conversations, Karen Kuo
Tracking traces, Songan Kyung
CTRL SHIFT, Kit Son Lee
Community Healthcare Clinic - adaptation system to the pandemic and post pandemic periods, Nhu Le
City of archive: visualize and spatialize archive, Zaiheng Liang
Land, labor, water: an agricultural commons in the Central Valley of California, Jacob Lightman
Post-industry brownfield renewal system: precision strategy and design via the new methodology, Sirui Li
Inside out: rethinking contemporary Chinese art and global creative economy, Tiange Li
Kitsch study and Chinese kitsch market, Jiaqi Ellie Liu
996 & anti-996, Jinmi Liu
Fluid ground: imagining a floating future for Tuvalu, Yuxi Liu
House of reincarnation, Xinyu Li
Making meaning, Eric Loucks
Objects and images, Jack Lovell
Live-work autonomy system on Mars: China's collective living onto Mars, Lishunxiang Luo
Beacon Public Library: expanding radical civic care for an uncertain future, Katrina Machado
All bodies wander, Haley MacKeil
Ars Technica, Bayan Mashrequi
Inside the bubble 2.0, Sunny Yuqing Ma
An interplay: biomimetic exploration of systems in architecture, Sanjana Masurkar
Wild things: outdoor toys for nature play, John Mawhorter
Martyr (in exile), Xinyi Mei
Eco-waste: household waste material flows in a circular economy, Erqi Meng
Jettisoning the frame: strategies for designing at the threshold, Will Mianecki
Indefinite origin: decentralizing knowledge, Tong-June Moon
Reinforcing connection within collective housing: a new vision of Red Steel City, Guangyi Niu
Future as medium, Georgie Nolan
The non-traditional student enrolled full-time in art school, Sarah Kathryn O'Brien
I just can't get you out of my head : frenetic vortex, animal as image - field notes (1989-2021), Steffanie A. Padilla
Ascents and descents in the 21st Century: restoring Chand Baori, Japneet Pahwa
Affordable Green: what cause landscape gentrification and how we deal with it, Siyu Pan
The beauty of collision, Yixuan Pan
Transformers: versatile apparel for a sustainable world, Zihan Amy Peng
Beauty still lives here: narratives of radical self-love, Deshun Peoples