2025 RISD Maharam Fellows Work for Justice and Sustainability

Since 2021, the Maharam Fellowship has supported RISD students interested in summer internships with local and global organizations focused on social justice and/or sustainability. Launched in 2012 and sponsored by New York textile manufacturer Maharam, the fellowship allows aspiring artists and designers to explore the unexpected role that creative thinking can play in solving seemingly intractable problems.

“RISD students bring valuable new perspectives to organizations that help to refresh their goals, spark new initiatives, and let them see the big picture of their missions,” says RISD Careers Director Kevin Jankowski 88 IL, who manages the program. “This summer’s 12 fellows are making incredible connections and really digging into the issues they’ve been selected to explore, like equitable housing and environmental stewardship.” 

Brown|RISD dual degree student Kylee Hong BRDD 26 IA says that her fellowship at the Provincetown [MA] Housing Office and Community Development Department on Cape Cod has been a “really cool experience that mixes local government, the built environment, public service and social services.” Hong’s mission is to support Provincetown’s efforts to address housing needs in the face of mounting affordability challenges by developing town-owned parcels of land and rezoning a key neighborhood for full-time residents. In the process, the Interior Architecture major is gaining insight into how municipal governments can advance housing solutions and community stability through planning, design and policy.

“RISD students bring valuable new perspectives to organizations that help to refresh their goals and spark new initiatives.”

RISD Careers Director Kevin Jankowski

Rising junior Quillen Domingue 27 ID traveled further afield for his summer fellowship—to Hawaii’s island of Kauaʻi, where he is working with the Waipā Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to community-based stewardship, cultural education and sustainable agriculture. “As a concentrator in Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies at RISD, I’m fascinated by how human relationships with nature have shaped food systems, tools, art, objects and architecture,” says Domingue.

One of Domingue’s summer projects is working with kids to design and build an outdoor play yard on Waipā’s land using primarily strawberry guava wood, which is an invasive species. He also contributes to the weekly harvesting, boiling and processing of poi, an Indigenous food that Waipā sells at cost in order to keep it on the tables of native Hawaiians.

“At RISD, we talk about what decolonization means and how to support Indigenous systems and cultures,” says Domingue. “It’s great to be here at Waipā, where I can help to get the work done.”

Rising senior Sofia Schreiber 26 IL is also putting her academic background and Illustration studio skills to work this summer as a fellow at Congress of the Birds, a nonprofit avian rehabilitation center headed up by former RISD faculty member Sheida Soleimani. Schreiber is helping to feed and care for baby birds whose homes have been destroyed by humans and working on a series of illustrated signs that tell the stories of specific birds she encountered this summer, which will be posted along hiking trails nearby.

“I approached these signs a bit less like scientific illustration and a bit more like a picture book in the woods,” she explains. “I wanted to be as accurate and educational as possible while also maintaining the joy and sorrow that is caring for these birds firsthand.”

Down in New Orleans, grad student Avrie Allen MFA 26 GD has been working with The Visiting Room Project, a nonprofit archive that supports individuals facing life in prison without parole. “I believe that having outlets for creative expression and self-reflection is important for everyone, especially those most marginalized and oppressed,” she says. Allen has been helping to organize and run a series of zine workshops for Louisiana residents who have been released from prison and says that her Graphic Design coursework at RISD—particularly an Experimental Publishing course taught by Tycho Horan—prepared her well for the role.

Fellow grad students Areeha Ahmad MA 26 GAC, Tanmayee More MLA 26 and Talha Shams MFA 26 PT and Brown|RISD dual degree student Jules Ho BRDD 27 IL are also using their creative skills to make a difference. Ahmad and Shams—both Pakistani natives—are in the nation’s capital, Lahore. Ahmad is collaborating with the Labour Education Foundation to amplify the voices of Pakistani workers, and Shams is working with the Khawaja Sira Society, which advocates for the rights of transgender women and Hijra individuals via creative workshops that promote self-expression and economic empowerment.

Due east, in Taiwan, Ho is using her illustration skills to teach elementary school-aged children about Taiwan’s endemic endangered species with the Farglory Foundation. And here in the US, More is working with the nonprofit Hui O Wa’a Kaulua on the island of Maui in Hawaii, leading workshops on traditional Polynesian canoeing techniques as well as ecological stewardship.

Recent alums are also eligible for Maharam Fellowships, and four of them are taking advantage of the opportunity this summer: Sophia Francesco BArch 25, who is working at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Connecticut; Ellen Fritz 25 PT, who is partnering with URI’s DWELL Lab and BEAM to create a virtual reality experience visualizing Rhode Island’s future climate; Mill Shah MDes 25, an interior architect from Mumbai, who is collaborating with the Mariposa Foundation, which is dedicated to meeting the needs of neurodiverse kids; and Mawra Tahreem MFA 25 IL, who is interviewing Pakistani migrants for the Center on Forced Displacement at Boston University.

Top image: Quillen Domingue works with a young Waipā Foundation camper on a restoration project on the island of Kauaʻi.

Simone Solondz
August 26, 2025