UC Davis Department of Design

05/27/2026

From digital data and technology to the environment, healthcare and the body, graduate students from across the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis, are pushing boundaries with their experimental research and creative expression. The results, varied in medium and discipline, will be on display at the Arts & Humanities 2026 Graduate Exhibition. The multidisciplinary showcase runs June 4–20 at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. The opening night reception on June 4, 5:30 to 9 p.m., is free and open to the public.
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05/25/2026

The Dept. of Design is a proud sponsor of Film Festival at UC Davis. Featuring short films by student filmmakers, this year's event is May 28 and 29 in 1002 Cruess Hall at 7pm. Free but reservations are required. Reserve at arts.ucdavis.edu/cinema-and-digital-media
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05/23/2026

05/11/2026

Celebrate spring with the Let's Draw Davis Sketch Crawl on Saturday, May 16. This time we will sketch in the old downtown area next to campus. We will meet at the corner of 3rd St and A St, and sketch around the area for a couple of hours before meeting up again at 3rd and A to look at each others' sketchbooks. START: 12:30pm, FINISH: 2:30pm. Just bring your sketching materials.
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05/05/2026

The results of the 16th annual Luminaire Design Competition are officially in, featuring a partnership with Maltani Lighting and the work of Professor Jae Yong Suk’s students. After three rounds of deliberation by the jury—comprising the Maltani design team, Neha Sivaprasad of Sol Light Studio, and Karen Park from UC Davis—the winners are Olivia McCutcheon, Mara Alagon, and Gian Ayson. For details visit arts.ucdavis.edu/design
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05/04/2026

MFA graduate student Wonjin Kim will present three papers at upcoming international conferences: EDRA57, DTRS’15, and ISEA2026. “Productive Misalignment” (EDRA57 - May 27-30) examines how residual urban spaces can be reactivated through micro-scale interventions and participatory governance. “Carrier Bag Thinking” (DTRS’15 - June 17-19) proposes a design epistemology centered on re-assemblability and exit-point design, while “Hybrid Media Eco-Bag” (ISEA2026 - Nov. 2026) presents a research-through-design artifact that operationalizes this approach via a carrier-based hybrid media interface. Selected papers will also be included in subsequent conference publications.
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04/30/2026

Nidhi Mittal, a second-year MFA Design Graduate student, presented her project, "The Invisible Data: Mapping the Perimenopausal Data Gap in Women's Health" at ACM CHI (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) in Barcelona and won second place in the Student Research Competition (SRC) for her paper.
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04/29/2026

Jae Yong Suk, professor of design and director of the California Lighting Technology Center, has been named the Arthur H. Rosenfeld Chair in Energy Efficiency at UC Davis. The endowment helps the chair holder promote the mission to develop and commercialize energy-efficient technologies, teach future leaders in energy efficiency, and conduct critical policy-supporting research. The position honors the legacy of Arthur H. Rosenfeld, considered the “father of energy efficiency.” The late Rosenfeld was a founding advisory board member of the UC Davis Energy and Efficiency Institute, a professor emeritus of physics at UC Berkeley, co-founder and former director of the Center for Building Science at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a former California Energy Commissioner.
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04/28/2026

Building off the momentum from the “Village Homes: A Radical Plan” exhibition, UC Davis is hosting a half-day symposium, “Building Communities that Work: What Village Homes Can Teach Us Today,” this Saturday, May 2. The event will feature conversations with scholars and practitioners from a variety of disciplines. 9:30am until 2 pm. Free but advance registration is required. Visit arts.ucdavis.edu/design
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04/27/2026

The Maria Manetti Shrem Art Studio Program presents a public lecture by Dyani White Hawk on Thursday, April 30 at 4:30 in the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.
A multidisciplinary artist, White Hawk's practice, strongly rooted in painting and beadwork, extends into sculpture, installation, video, and performance, reflects upon cross-cultural experiences through the amalgamation of influences from Lakota and Euro/American abstraction. A mid-career survey "Dyani White Hawk: Love Language," co-organized by the Walker Art Center and Remai Modern, opened at Remai Modern on April 25, 2026. Free and open to all. Doors open at 4pm.
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