Introducing the 2025 MAD Design Fellows

Each year, the MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MAD) supports MIT graduate students with a fellowship allowing them to pursue design research and projects while creating community. Pulling from different corners of design, they explore solutions in fields such as sustainability, health, mobility, urban planning, social justice, or education. The 2025 cohort of Design Fellows was first announced at the MIT Welcome Center, on the occasion of the MAD in Dialogue event.

Congratulations to:

Clay Anderson

Master, City Planning
Master, Science in Real Estate Development

Hailing from San Antonio, Texas, Clay came to MIT after working as a transportation planner for his hometown, where he helped create the city’s bike and Vision Zero plans. He also led an advocacy campaign to restart planning for intercity train service between San Antonio and Austin, where he engaged with local elected officials to help build consensus about the importance of regional transportation.

At MIT, Clay’s coursework combines urban design with real estate analysis, where he is interested in identifying physical design that reduces car-dependency along with the financial and economic frameworks that are needed to make such development happen.

Jack Forman

PhD, Media Arts & Sciences

Jack Forman is a materials scientist, designer, and researcher exploring how materials and textures can act, express, and perform — not simply as passive substrates, but as active participants in interaction, environment, and construction. Jack’s research spans programmable fibers, responsive textiles, functional structures, and large-scale ephemeral architectures.

Forman reimagines textiles as dynamic interfaces by developing liquid crystal elastomer fibers that when heated undergo large and fully reversible contractions. The resulting fabrics can transform, inform, and adapt without sacrificing the soft touch, washability, and manufacturability that underlie their ubiquity.

“Perhaps the primary contribution materials science offers to human-computer interfaces is the palette of dynamic textures made possible by encoding interactivity on a molecular level,” says Forman.

Claire Gorman Hanly

Master, Computer Science
Master, Environmental Planning

Claire Gorman Hanly is a computer scientist and environmental designer. Her research and practice focus on the implementation of deep learning-based computer vision methods in built and natural environments, with applications in regenerative agriculture, remote sensing, and cultural landscape preservation.

She situates these technical approaches within an environmental planning framework, turning an optimistic eye to peatlands: the most efficient ecologies for terrestrial carbon sequestration on earth. Through a curatorial project examining the computational images — satellite photographs, data visualizations, maps, archival imagery, and art — that describe these landscapes, she will design computer vision integrations for traditional modes of peatland stewardship.

Julissa Higgins

MBA, MIT Sloan

Julissa Higgins is an entrepreneur and former designer at companies like Airbnb, Afterpay, and Walmart. Raised in a predominantly Latinx, low-income neighborhood in Miami, Higgins saw early on how brilliant, driven people in her community were too often shut out of high-paying career paths — not because of a lack of talent, but because of a lack of access.

She is developing a program that trains and employs women of color from underserved communities for high-paying careers in design. By combining hands-on learning, mentorship, and job placement, the program creates a scalable model and clear path to economic mobility for women that don't have access to traditional career pipelines.

Rebecca Lin

PhD, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Co-advised by Erik Demaine at CSAIL and Zach Lieberman at the Media Lab, Rebecca Lin develops mathematical abstractions and computational tools that enable new and more expressive ways of making in art, design, and fabrication.

She is developing Refashion — a system for modular and reconfigurable garments that directly incorporates textile reuse into their design. The system introduces a library of building blocks and a digital tool that enables mixing and matching them into garments of different sizes and styles.

Oliver Moldow

Master, Architecture

Holding a Masters in Integrative Technology and Architecture Design Research from the University of Stuttgart, and currently a graduate student researcher between the Self Assembly Lab and Digital Structures Lab at MIT, Oliver Moldow’s research centers on the intersection of computational design, material characterization, fabrication, and structural engineering.

Moldow aims to combine sustainable forestry and low-carbon construction by integrating CT imaging of timber elements with generative AI tools to inform new opportunities in utilization of wood materials.

Lauren Ramlan

PhD, Biological Engineering

Lauren "Ren" Ramlan is a genetic engineer and biodesigner who believes the future of design isn’t made — it’s grown. Co-advised by Chris Voigt in Biological Engineering and David Kong at the Media Lab's Community Biotechnology Initiative, her work here reimagines fungi as architects of living, responsive materials — engineering mycelium to change color, sense the world around it, and adapt to different environments.

To bridge the gap between science and design with these materials, she develops accessible biofabrication tools that empower engineers, designers, and artists to create with biology.

Alex Stewart

Master, Architecture

Alex Stewart is passionate about meeting the challenges of increasing urban density, rising costs of living, income inequality, and repressive trends in design by reimagining city living. He pushes for design from the scale of an apartment complex all the way down to the scale of the plugin, interchangeable amenities in its rooms.

Specializing in rendering images, diagrams, and videos to communicate his ideas, he investigates how architectural and product design can work in tandem to create flexible, adaptable living spaces that empower individuals in increasingly dense and complex urban landscapes. He aims to provide residents with greater autonomy and adaptability in their environments, for example by reimagining how amenities (kitchenettes, refrigerators, toilets, sinks, desks, etc.) can be installed and personalized in living spaces.

Sara Laura Wilson

PhD, Mechanical Engineering

Working in the Ideation Lab with Professor Maria Yang, Sara Laura Wilson develops computational tools, informed by behavioral psychology and human-centered design principles, to identify actionable design interventions for lowering barriers to sustainable behavior. A key focus of her work is creating a cyclical process where user input and feedback continuously inform both the development of computational tools and the designs they generate.

Confronting the “value-action gap,” her goal is to make sustainable choices both intuitive and desirable, using AI-driven tools that leverage natural language processing and uncover insights into user motivations and barriers. These insights inform the creation of “pro-environmental design nudges” embedded in products that make sustainable choices both intuitive and appealing.

Melody Yu

PhD, Mechanical Engineering

Melody (Tongge) Yu's work blends innovative textile design with advanced engineering. Drawing on her background in industrial design, intelligent manufacturing, and data science, she uses design thinking to develop smart textiles that interact dynamically with their environment to enhance user comfort and experience.

Yu studies how the structure of textiles — from individual fibers to complete fabrics — affects their ability to manage moisture. By combining computer models, simulations, and hands-on experiments, she aims to design fabrics that quickly absorb sweat and help it evaporate, keeping the body cool and comfortable.