"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
Pulped Landscapes, Allison P. Abrams
Silent Witnesses: Reconnecting Landscape through Lost Narratives, Abeer Aljohani
Al-Naseej: A Woven Path, Dalal M. Almazeedi
Exploring Al Balad, danah alqunfuzi
Post Occupation Amnesia, Zainah AlWuhaib
The Dialectic of Airless Space, ophelia arc
Between Sleeps, Cassidy S. Argo
'manch' beyond - museum, Dhwani Bapna
The Navel Of The Dream, Ella C. Baum
Learning What Makes Craft Schools Successful, Christopher J. Beaudoin and Christopher James Beaudoin
Post Salt: Adaptive Architecture for an Uncertain Climate, Mallorie Beckner
Notes From A Twentysomething Educator: Liberation in the Art Classroom and Beyond, Julia R. Braffett
No One Thing, Kate Brown
this is how to shoot a gun., Rene Camarillo
Daily Creative Practice: A Path to Well-Being for Self + Society, Ellie Cashman
MFA Confidential, Julius Cavira and Julius Cavira
Living Heritage, Aysenur Cetin
Poetic Pragmatism, Nino N. Chambers
Lingering Loading, Chi Hao Chang
SPACE, LIFE AND CAPITAL: THE METABOLIC RIFT, Zhongsu Cheng
To Stain the Soul, ShaoQing Chen
Re-imagining As Re-empowering, Zheyun Chen
Soft Potential, Jennifer Choi
Site-Specific Nurseries: Reconnecting Nurseries to Time and Place Through Ecotypic Bare-Root Production, Tryn Collins
Towards the Non-Spectacle: Responses to Necropolitics in the artwork of Teresa Margolles and Maya Watanabe, Leslie Anne Condon
Parallel Worlds, Mary J. Connell
Soft Stickers, Alexandra L. Croft
Wood in Hand: Open-Ended Wooden Play, Farnaz Dastranj
Unseen, But There, XINYU DONG
WOOORRMMHOOOLLEESS, Kimberly Duck
How To Walk On Water: Living Through The Absurd, Esther Du
Built for Belonging: An Exploration of the Mutual Adoption Between Human and Home, Jillian Edwards
Till Tender, Karli R. Ehl
Of Dolls and Jewels : Keeping as a Strategy of Care and Belonging, YUQI FAN
the house at the end of time, Gyles Jose Antonio Ferrao
Interlocked, Katharine Frank
Moving with Mountains, Matthew Freeman
Gradiance: a mindfulness intervention, Kip Geddes
The Afterlife of Walls / Reimagining the Museum Beyond Possession, Bensu Girgin
Giving Space to Equity: Creating Modular Mentorship Spaces for At-Risk Youth, Helei Gomariz-Robertson
,, Yujia Gong
Almost Architecture, Almost [ other ] : Examining Approximative Methods of Design Through the Lens of Hydrologic Structures, Pateton Gonzales
A Weathering Narrative: Architecture as a Living Archive of Time and Change, Estephania Granados
Prosthesis, Alexander A. Grosek
Bookmaking with Young Children Rooted in Care and Choice, Xiao Guo
Jotographía // Fagtography: On Amor Propio Radical // Radical Self-Love, Jonathan Erick Guzman
Gesture and Trace, Luisa M. Heindl
What [Could] Happen[ed] in Oak Cliff: Reimagining Gentrification without Displacement, Samantha E. Hernandez
The (Im)possibility of Existing (Conditions), Emily Hesse
For the Time Beings, Tori Hong
MEMEGANDA, zhengxiang huang
Tree Story, Jia Hu
Time Reclamation, Yuming Hu
Building Ecologies: Maintaining Land, Working with Wood, Taylor Jais
Foundations of Belonging, Yerim Jang
Untitled, Seung Ho Jeon
Revealing Watery Geologies: Softening the Mississippi River Bluffs in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Chloe Kahn
Playful Parenting, Shloka Kartikeyan
Notes on Revivalism, Elana R. Kates
Deceptive Images, Dohee Kim
Immersive Stillness in Poetic Space: Textiles for an Uncertain World, Dora HyunJung Kim
Shape Shifter, Hyomin Kim
Designing Between Worlds, Levon Kostandyan
Ontology of the Discarded, Hae Young Kwon
Time in Architecture, MInho Kwon
Breathing with Water; Rebuilding Coastal Connections in Busan, Seri Kwon
Unframing Venus: Redefining the Female Nude, Sage Leafsong
Where Motion Lingers..., CHENG-LIN LEE
The Terror of the Threshold: on Impermanence, Enclothed Hauntology, and Rest, David M. Legrand
Welcome to My Mind Palace: The Power of Fantastical Thinking, Sadie Levine
Reimagining The Arcade, Yichen Liao
Rooted in Embodied Making: A Notebook on Process, Vija Lietuvninkas
Swing Landscape, Yingwen Lin
TUBO, Shaobo Liu
Out of Consumption Out of Context Into Recursion, Xubai Li
Belonging in Memory, Yilin Li
Note of an Image-Game Maker, Yuanhui Li
Folding Horizons: Knitted Textiles for a Mobile World, Yutong Li
Patchworks - A design framework for repairing systems, one patch at a time., Jack A. Martinez
FROM INDUSTRIAL BUILDING TO AFFORDABLE SENIOR HOUSING: AN IDEA BOOK BEYOND CODE, Weiyi Ma
A Seat at the Table: Expanding the Narrative of Period Rooms, Jade McPike
Playing With Ideas: A Museum-Based Inquiry, Claire Meagher
The Portals: Jewelry as a site of escape and solace, Jung Ki Min
Echoes of Longing, Mahalexmi Mohan
Fire Fossils: Biomineral Infrastructures in Untangling Climates, Tanmayee More
Scattering Garden - Designing for cremated ash scattering in cemetery landscapes, Sathya G. Munagamage
Ib-Adat, Anum Naseer
Embodied Archives, Emerging Futures, Xuân-Lam Nguyen
show time!, Georgia Oldham
Gust, Stroll, Veil, Jungeun Park
The Arch and The Looking Glass: Umbli Cu Cioara Vopsitǎ, Ana Popescu
Smora: Breath as Memory, Pratikesh Pundkar
Wetland rehabilitation through interspecies co-design, Charanya Rajan Ms.
The Ruminating Shell : A Reparative Experiment in Dialogic Writing and Sensory Resonance, Crystal Jiayin Ren
Material Values Black Locust Exploration, Benjamin N. Riley
Covered in Snow, Katelynn M. Rogers
INSTRUMENT, Elliott M. Romano
Graphic Gestures on the Digital Surface; In Defense of the Observational, Soyoung Ro