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The Design Innovation initiative is pleased to welcome the second cohort of the Faculty Fellows program. Based in the DI Hub, the program launched in 2022 to create space for faculty members from any field to devote a portion of their teaching, research and scholarly focus to collaborative, cross-disciplinary projects and DI co-teaching experiences for an entire academic year.

The Stories Connecting Generations exhibit features 23 projects from the namesake class that pairs sociology and visual communication design students with an older adult partner, usually a resident of an area senior center, who they build a relationship with throughout the semester. At the end, they are tasked with transforming the life experiences of their partner into a visual design.

Design Innovations’s newest node brings the future of education to campus. The Learning Innovations Lab, located in White Hall, joins 25+ DI nodes at Kent State. The node’s divergence from the traditional makerspace - technology in the lab largely focuses on education - gives it a distinct presence on campus. 

In partnership with Design Innovation and Kent State University Police, local startup Immobileyes, Inc. challenged students to create an innovative design for an effective tool police can use in active shooter situations. The design challenge concluded on April 18 with final presentations from student teams and awards presented to the winning teams.

Ryan Davis, Exercise Physiology graduate student, and his student approached two DI Crew members, Nick Cindrich and Julian Leff, with a disability issue regarding a classroom tool.

The gallery’s latest exhibit, “Draining the Swamp: An Environmental History of Wetlands on the Kent Campus,” features decades of maps and newspaper clippings that tell the story of the once heavily forested campus. The centerpiece is a scaled down 3D model of the campus’ geography, including drained and preserved wetlands. 

A fungus that spent a week inside a grow tent has taken over the MuseLab. This isn’t the start of a science fiction novel, or an episode of “The Last of Us,” it’s “Party of One: Future Fungal Furniture.” The exhibit is the first publicly shared experiment of Britta Bielak’s research on the potential that mycelium, the root-like structure of a fungus, has as a regenerative and structural building material.

Valle’s “Exploring 3D Print Waste in Fashion” is a graduate student thesis that seeks to challenge industry standards. Elegant garments dot the room as part of a timeline that takes the viewer on a journey of initial curiosity to full-scale application of 3D print waste in textile design and co-creation.

Design Innovation welcomes its 1,000th collaborator, reaching the milestone in just under two years.