Alumni Spotlight
Parker Zimmerman
Parker Zimmerman (BFA/Printmaking 2018) has received a teaching assistantship from Indiana University as he pursues his MFA in Printmaking.
Jonathan Christensen
Jonathan Christensen (BFA/Ceramics and Sculpture 2013) received his MFA in Sculpture at Indiana University in 2020. Jonathan is one of Ceramics Monthly's 2021 Emerging Artists.
Bailee Jones
Bailee Jones (BFA, Art Education) was accepted into the Arts Administration MFA program at Southern Utah University. As a graduate student, she will work with the Southern Utah University Museum of Art as she persues her degree. In addition to being a BFA student during her time at USU, Bailee was also a Caine Scholar. A program designed to attract and retain exceptional students within the Caine College of the Arts.
Interior Architecture and Design Notable Alumni
Allison Brown
Allison Brown (BID 2018) has been named the IIDA Commercial Interior Design Association student of the year for 2018. The IIDA Student of the Year award recognizes an IIDA Student Member who has significantly impacted their school’s interior design program through outstanding leadership, insight, and involvement.
Maryam Al Suwaidi
Maryam Al Suwaidi (MS/Interior Design 2010) partnered with her husband (USU Alum, Sulaiman Althehli) and started her interior design firm Design Talk Interior Design Studio, where she is the head designer and creative director. She currently handles commercial and corporate projects like Spas, F&Bs, Retail shops, offices, and exhibition stands.
Additionally, Maryam has been designing furniture pieces and participating in art exhibitions since 2010. In 2016, she took part in the Architectural digest event “Art of Dining” where she designed a table setup with a story. Maryam was also featured next to her partner/husband in Harpers Bazaar magazine, featuring their new firm, which they moved into in 2017.
Gabriel and Brooke Anderson
Gabriel Anderson holds advanced degrees from the leading interior design program at Utah State University. He was mentored by Jamie Drake and Vicente Wolfe, two of the design world’s top talents. In 2015, Gabriel and Brooke Anderson launched their furniture brand, Gabriel Dean Design. Sothebys called them “designers to watch” and indeed they have quickly gained recognition for their pieces which effortlessly inhabit the space between rigorous mathematical precision and almost whimsical freedom of form. In contrast, Brooke specializes in counseling and human behavior. She focuses on how people interact with and influenced by the spaces where they reside. Now Gabriel and Brooke are taking the same sensibilities that have made their furniture so successful and applying them to the field of interior design, with their new venture: Dean & Dahl. Architectural Digest’s 2018 Holiday House included Dean & Dahl’s spectacular children's room. Their furniture designs continue to be featured in prominent design magazines.
Peter Harrison
Peter Harrison (BID 2018) is an interior designer at ZGF Architects, an international architecture, urban design, and interior design firm focused on design excellence, innovation, and stewardship of the environment. Peter pulls from his background in sustainability, landscape architecture, and interior design to advocate for healthier materials in the built environment. He serves on the Project Performance Team at ZGF, an inter-office taskforce that guides project teams on sustainable practices, and he is active in the Portland Materials Transparency Collaborative, a network of industry professionals who advocate for transparency in the way products are developed, designed and integrated into the built environment. As an emerging professional, Peter is a part of ZGF’s Young Developing Professionals Committee and maintains a robust membership presence in IIDA’s Oregon Chapter. Peter is a LEED AP ID+C accredited professional and is pursing NCIDQ Certification.
Laura Taylor
Laura Taylor is a San Francisco-based commercial interior designer with a passion for creating unique and impactful environments. From global corporate headquarters, to state-of-the-art university buildings, she has collaborated on both large-scale and small-scale projects throughout the bay area with some of the world’s most cutting-edge companies. Laura proudly embraces the label “millennial” and credits her human-centered design approach to her generation’s fluency in brand experience, technology, and storytelling.
Laura has been deeply involved in the architecture and design community since she was a student and is a current member of the San Francisco IIDA City Center Committee where she works closely with a diverse group of design professionals. After achieving NCIDQ and LEED AP ID+C credentials, she actively advocates for the importance of the commercial interior design industry and its commitment to wellness, equity, and sustainability.
Convinced that USU’s interior design students are some of the world’s best, she recently established an annual scholarship to support students who pursue ambitious summer internships across the United States and abroad.
Meg Turner
Meg Turner is an interior and product designer. She has worked in commercial, residential, and multifamily design, completing projects across the United States and on USU's campus, including Aggie Ice Cream, the Engineering Idea Factory and the USU Post Office. Meg has been honored with multiple awards including a SRS award for research in the CCA for her honors thesis FOLD: A modern lighting line (2017), a two time winner of Durkan's Dscvr competition (2016, 2017) and a top 5 finalist for the Kennedy Center Israeli Lounge International Design Competition in 2018.
After placing first place in 2017 as a student in Durkan's Dscvr competition, she was commissioned to create a free standing carpet collection for Durkan, known as Symbiotic, which launched in December 2018 and has been featured in Hospitality Design Magazine. She was recruited as a Durkan field designer in the Chicago/North Central region, where she is designing custom carpet and future collections, and continuing interiors work on her own.