Arts & Culture

Industrial and Interaction Design Program Celebrates Two National Awards

Friday, June 21, 2013, By Erica Blust

The industrial and interaction design (IID) program in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) is celebrating two national awards achieved by a faculty member and a recent alumna.

Assistant Professor Kathleen Brandt is co-director of Syracuse University’s Thinklab, which was named an Educational Initiatives Professional Notable by Core77 as part of its 2013 Design Awards, celebrating the richness of the design profession and the brilliance of its practitioners. Thinklab is a collaboration environment designed to foster and apply imaginative thinking for real-world change.

IID alumna Amanda Savitzky ’12 won the $10,000 top prize in Metropolis Next Generation Competition for the Match Cooking Prep System for People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which she developed for her IID senior thesis project. The system encourages adults with autism to prepare food using a set of tools—measuring cups, prep bowls and an iPad app—and was inspired by her brother Steven, who has ASD. Savitzky talks more about the system in Metropolis’s June issue.