RISD Maharam Fellows Safeguard the Environment and Preserve Cultural Traditions

This summer, RISD students are putting their creative skills to work beyond the studio thanks to funding from RISD’s Maharam Fellowship. Sponsored by New York textile manufacturer Maharam, the fellowship supports students interested in summer internships with local and global organizations focused on advancing social progress and safeguarding the environment.

"I have been so inspired by this summer's Maharam fellows and the extraordinary range of their experiences,” says RISD Careers Director Kevin Jankowski 88 IL, who manages the program. “Their RISD education is serving them very well as they employ their skills and knowledge in supporting communities, improving lives, protecting the environment, and preserving cultural traditions. Their commitment to the work of these nonprofits has been truly outstanding." 

Rising Painting senior June Ahleman 27 PT is working with Evanston ASPA, a nonprofit supporting the Asian American community in Evanston, IL. Ahleman has been gathering and organizing educational resources connected to Illinois’ TEAACH Act, which ensures that public schools teach Asian American history. She facilitated a community workshop in collaboration with the Japanese Cultural Center of Chicago and the Osaka Committee of Chicago Sister Cities International at the Hive Center for the Book Arts. Participants made paper cranes that will be installed next year in a local cultural institution yet to be determined. 

Image

Image

Ahleman’s studies at RISD have enriched the work she is doing this summer in many ways. She is developing an art-specific educational resource to support the TEAACH Act, which she says has been exciting as a Theory and History of Art and Design concentrator. “I love being able to incorporate my knowledge from RISD into the K-12 Asian American history curricula and archives,” she says. 

In San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, Printmaking grad student Jessie Kanji MFA 27 PR is exploring the relationship between handmade processes, cultural memory, and Indigenous-led publishing. At Taller Leñateros, a publishing collective founded by poet and artist Ámbar Past, Kanji has been learning sustainable papermaking techniques using locally sourced plant fibers. She has worked alongside members of the collective to make paper incorporating flower petals and local plants, while exploring an archive containing decades of handmade papers, books, and prints. The experience has prompted her to consider how material practices can carry cultural knowledge across generations.

“Paper had a sacred role: it could carry prayers and offerings between the human and spiritual worlds,” she explains. “The collective is not simply making beautiful handmade books and papers through papermaking, printmaking, storytelling, and publishing in Indigenous languages; they are continuing a tradition of using paper to hold language, identity, memory, and cultural knowledge.” 

Image

Image

For Illustration major Serena Yu 27 IL, the landscape itself has become a classroom. At the Dennis Conservation Land Trust on Cape Cod, Yu has participated in biodiversity surveys, ecological research, and regenerative farming while developing creative projects for the organization. One project included the tedious job of counting tree rings under a microscope. 

“Our oldest cored tree is around 200 years old!” she exclaims. “This process is so fascinating, and it’s a great example of how conservation science preserves more than just species and ecology, but the entire history of the land.

“I think the highlight of being a Maharam fellow is that it provides such a unique opportunity to be an artist outside of a creative space,” Yu says. “My personal experience has really shown me how I can use my skills to make an impact in different communities.”

You can read more about all of the 2026 fellows and their projects at risdmaharamfellows.com.

Kaylee Pugliese / Top image: Serena Yu holds a spadefoot toad, one of the endangered species she is monitoring at the Dennis Conservation Land Trust on Cape Cod.
August 20, 2026