Back in April, Denise DeLuca (Director of the MA in Sustainable Design program) brought Stefanie Koehler (MASD 2013) to Kenya to help teach a 4-day field course called BioEmpathy for the Amani Institute. Stef, a 2013 graduate of MCAD’s MA in Sustainable Design program, recently taught a semester-long course called “Design Futures and Ecologies” in →

Disrupt your thinking. Flex your creativity. Get a jolt of inspiration. Envision your role in creating a sustainable world. Join Denise DeLuca and Stefanie Koehler for Design Week Portland where we’ll be running the workshop Bio-inspired Design for a Sustainable World. During this hands-on experience, we’ll cover basics of Sustainable Design and Biomimicry and share →

Susan Crow is a sustainable designer, entrepreneur and CEO of East Fourth Street Jewelry, a luxury eco-jewelry business in Minnesota. Crow got her Professional Certificate in Sustainable Design from MCAD in 2009 — a pioneer helping create the pathway for the MA in Sustainable Design program.   We are incredibly proud to be included in →

As a lead up to Sustainable Brands conference SB’18 , students, alumni, and faculty of our MA in Sustainable Design program interviewed selected speakers — leaders in corporate sustainability initiatives.  In this blog we share our interview with Erin Meezan, Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at Interface. Erin Meezan, Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, leads the company on an audacious →

It is easy to feel as though the world is spiralling out of control, that we’re caught in a downward spiral of our own making. This downward spiral is, curiously, caused by positive feedback loops. A positive feedback loop is when the result of an action tends to drive more of the same action. Positive feedback →

In nature, all design is sustainable design. This applies to nature’s products and process, of course, but it also applies to nature’s leadership models and organizational structures. For this reason, biomimicry is woven throughout our MA in Sustainable Design (MASD) program as a framework, as a tool, as a set of case studies, and as →

The students, faculty, and alumni of MCAD’s MA in Sustainable Design program had the opportunity to interview leading thinkers and do-ers in the world of sustainability that were invited to speak at SB18. Each interview revolved around six questions, which led to engaging and inspiring discussions.  Of these six, I felt that one of the most →

The end of the semester usually brings a welcome break for students, but the ever-eager students, alumni, and faculty of the MA in Sustainable Design (MASD) program are not slowing down.  Instead, they are interviewing over 40 speakers of the upcoming Sustainable Brands conference to learn about the inspiring people behind the bold sustainability movements. →

Ellie Cotlar graduated with an MA in Sustainable Design this spring, but missed the graduation ceremony because she was on her way to Copenhagen, Denmark to participate in the Youth Fashion Summit (YFS).  MA in Sustainable Design students Adja Mesic, Allison Hendricks, Aoife Fahey, also attended the concurrent Copenhagen Fashion Summit. The partnership between Youth →

At different times, in different places, and for different reasons, each followed her guiding star. Those stars led to a love of nature, then careers in graphic design, and then to the MCAD Sustainable Design program where eventually their stars collided and formed Humbleweed Creative. Ask one of the partners at Humbleweed Creative what brought →