College of Design

A University of Oregon product design student has been selected as one of sixty-six university students nationwide to become University Innovation Fellows for Epicenter, a program collaborated through Stanford University and The National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation.

Claire Sakaguchi, a senior at UO pursuing a major in product design and a minor in business, will learn the fundamentals of entrepreneurial strategies during her participation with Epicenter. She is the first UO student to be admitted to the program.

UO architecture graduate student Grace Aaraj was the People’s Choice winner in the Three Minute Thesis State Championships in May, where doctoral and master’s students were challenged to present their thesis topic in three minutes using one slide. A native of Lebanon, Aaraj is attending the UO on a Fulbright scholarship after graduating with a BArch from the Institut des Beaux Arts II, Beirut.

Product Design Program Assistant Professor Wonhee Jeong Arndt has been named one of the Top 10 “Women in Industrial Design” by the Women in Design section of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). A selection of her work will be shown in a juried exhibition on Saturday, June 14, during San Francisco Design Week, June 13-20.

An expert in Oregon’s hiking and history, the founder of a nonpartisan research and educational think tank, and a health plan administrator are the winners of three 2014 awards for public service presented by the UO Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management and the PPPM Advisory Council. The awards ceremony will take place June 12 at the Ford Alumni Center Ballroom on the University of Oregon campus.

Four students in the Planning, Public Policy and Management Department’s Scholars on Board Program will present their experiences from serving on a nonprofit board during a symposium Tuesday, June 3, from 8-9:30 a.m., in Heritage Hall, located in the Bowerman Family Center at University of Oregon.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), a University of Oregon volunteer student group run through the Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management, have planned Festival Latino, a Latino community event.

Festival Latino will be a fundraiser for the Eugene-based nonprofit Huerto de la Familia, or “The Family Garden.” Each year, AFP plans a fundraiser for a specific local nonprofit; Huerto de la Familia works with the Latino community on organic gardening, nutrition, and microbusiness development projects.

Three UO art professors and a recent UO MFA graduate are joining artists from around the country May 28-30 in the Third Culture Conversations at the Lewis Integrative Science Building (LISB) on the UO campus. The gathering is part conference and part creative/intellectual experiment among nineteen artists and UO scientists, sponsored by the Oregon Arts Commission.

Three UO architecture undergraduates won four team awards in the Royal Society of Arts U.S. awards in April, with one of the three also winning a three-month summer internship with a noted global architecture firm.

Carolyn Lieberman, Samuel Ridge, and Cody Tucker took home the RSA Leadership Award for Architecture, the Agnes Bourne Cash Award for interiors, and the Techmer PM Award for Sustainable Design. Each award comes with a $1,000 cash prize.

Professor Kingston Heath, director of the Historic Preservation Program, has been awarded the 2014 Excellence Award for Directors of Graduate Studies by the UO Graduate School. The honor will be formally presented during the Director of Graduate Studies spring meeting at approximately 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 28, in the Knight Library Browsing Room.

“I am humbled by the recognition and truly appreciative,” Heath said. “Mentoring students along their journey as professionals is the most fulfilling aspect of my role as a program director.”

The City of Eugene and the University of Oregon welcome the 2014 Neighborhoods USA (NUSA) conference to Eugene this evening, Wednesday, May 21. A&AA Dean Frances Bronet will give opening remarks at 6 p.m. at the Ford Alumni Center. Nearly 600 attendees have registered from as far away as the Netherlands and Japan to learn about building and strengthening neighborhood organizations.