Students
Students come to the Parsons MS SDM program from all over the world. Their experience combines studios, seminars, networking, events, symposia, and more. This page will inform you about student projects like First Year Studio and Second Year Studio, student resources, and other opportunities.
Navigating Change: Museums, Nonprofits, and the Future of Cultural Institutions
On February 27, 2025, Jennifer Rittner facilitated a discussion with Dr Sharon Counts and Sruthi Sadhujan on how nonprofits and cultural institutions navigate change while maintaining their core mission and values. Sruthi Sadhujan, a brand strategist for nonprofits, shared her journey into organizational change, emphasizing that branding in the nonprofit space extends beyond logos and taglines—it’s a transformative process that affects culture, power dynamics, and institutional identity. She introduced a four-part framework for evaluating change: Treasures – Legacy practices and traditions that hold enduring value and should be preserved. Baggage – Outdated ways of thinking or operating that no…
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Spring 2025 Portfolio Masterclass and Alumni Review Session
Reflections on the Spring 2025 Portfolio Masterclass and Alumni Review Sessions We are thrilled to share that the Spring 2025 Portfolio Masterclass and Alumni Review Sessions were a success! The sessions were designed to provide the MS SDM students with invaluable tools and guidance to enhance their professional portfolios and advance their careers. Thanks to the incredible dedication and expertise of our alumni, the event exceeded expectations and proved to be an enriching experience for all involved. A Masterclass on Crafting an Effective Portfolio The Portfolio Masterclass, led by the talented Paul Benson, took place on February 6th. In this…
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Parsons ELab’s longitudinal study “Closing The Gender Gap in Funding” Workshop
Friday Jan 17, the Parsons ELab’s hosted a longitudinal study workshop, “Closing The Gender Gap in Funding,” focused on identifying and addressing the systemic barriers female founders face. Female-identifying founders receive under 3% of all the funding available in the U.S. For Black, Brown, and Latina, it drops even lower. This flies in the face of all the data that shows investing in women creates better returns with less risk and lifts whole communities. This isn’t a zero-sum game or less for some and more for others, but a win/win when we invest in women. Working with stakeholders on imagining…
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Good Interventions ’25 – Open Call
Good Interventions is an annual exhibition of intangible design projects that address the pressing issues of our time by bringing together the power of design and social sciences. For its fourth edition, fifteen projects will be selected to be exhibited. The School of Design Strategies organizes the program, which will take place in its permanent exhibition as a portal in the Platform of Design Strategies. Social sciences think with concepts. But can we think by making? Design thinks with things. But can we design with concepts? In what ways can science be used as a tool to make sense of…
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Design & UX research Guest Lecture
We’re thrilled to share that our guest lecture with Jennifer M. Brennan and Alex Chao, Google’s leading UX Researchers, was a great success! During the session, MS SDM students had the opportunity to explore the world of Design and UX Research, gaining valuable insights into how these concepts are applied in the tech industry. The event provided a fantastic opportunity to deepen their understanding of the research field, with many participants benefiting from the expert advice and answers to their questions. A big thank you to everyone who joined us – it was truly an inspiring and enriching experience!
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Creating Connections MS SDM Fall 2024 Symposium
The first annual MS Strategic Design & Management Fall 2024 Symposium is coming up on November 22, at 1opm at The New School. This symposium will explore how Strategic Designers create connections within systems, among stakeholders, to new opportunities, in complex ecosystems, in communities, and around the world. Through panel discussions, participatory workshops, Pecha Kucha-style presentations, posters, and product demos, students will share project work and emergent discourses that serve to inform practices in strategic design. FOLLOW THIS LINK TO FIND PROGRAMING INFORMATION
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Bindu- Building a community around crafts
The organised handicraft sector exploits craftspeople, forcing repetitive work under middle-men who take most profits and stifle creativity. Bindu addresses this by connecting craftspeople directly to the market, promoting inclusion, co-creation, and dialogue. It fosters a loyal community, bridges gaps between craftspeople, NGOs, trade unions, and the government, and preserves traditional crafting techniques. Designer: Souvik Mukherjee RETURN TO GOOD INTERVENTIONS ’24 EXHIBITION
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Andam: Design for Disaster Preparedness
Andam (meaning prepare in Cebuano) is a gamified electronic build kit designed to be used by multigenerational families. The kit facilitates an interaction in which users collaboratively build a solar light and radio (post-disaster essentials), whilst sharing lived experience of disaster and preparedness recommendations, prompted by instructional cards. This project was conducted in collaboration with the University of the Philippines, Cebu, and the Lapu-Lapu Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office. Designer: Tori Simpson RETURN TO GOOD INTERVENTIONS ’24 EXHIBITION
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Augmented City: towards a more humane and empathetic smart city
Augmented City aims to bring collective memory to life by integrating the personal histories of its inhabitants into the city’s physical spaces. Through participatory technology, it enables citizens to share their geolocated memories on a cloud-based platform using images, texts, audio, videos. Users can experience these memories through mobile devices at the locations where they originated, allowing for an immersive and more inclusive contextual exploration of the city’s social reality. Designers: Polise Moreira De Marchi Veronica Pontes Enrique Trevelin Lucas Falcão Artacho Mario de Castro Yuri Lamonica Chuk Michele Alves de Freitas Batista Wesley dos Santos Antonio Araujo Bárbara Dariano…
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Community Enabler
The design project, Community Enabler, aims to transform Grönsakstorget from a parking lot into an inclusive, vibrant summer square. Through 10 weeks of prototyping and public engagement, we explored the site and configurations in collaboration with the municipality of Gothenburg. The focus was on accessibility, creativity, and community input to create a dynamic space for social interaction, artistic expression, and cultural exchange, reflecting the community’s diverse voices and needs. Designers: Anne-Li Liljeblad Inês Moreira Thilo Pantring RETURN TO GOOD INTERVENTIONS ’24 EXHIBITION
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