It is with much pride and admiration, that we celebrate and applaud the excellence of Assistant Professor Aziza Cyamani who was recently awarded the 2022 IDSA Young Educator Award by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).
Cyamani was nominated by her peers for her demonstrated passion for student learning and notable command of design education as she champions a product design minor that provides students an opportunity to customize and expand their potential as designers.
“Aziza cares deeply about empowering students and about the issues of diversity and inclusion that concern us," one of her nominators wrote. "She was essentially the foundation to my education as an industrial designer.”
In the short time since Cyamani has been employed with the College of Architecture, she has initiated a strategic process identifying core learning outcomes and knowledge domains for the product design minor program while addressing critical and relevant topics such as sustainability, human factors, access and design equity. These efforts have resulted in new courses and a minor re-development proposal that will soon be reviewed at the college level. The re-development situates students to learn about an allied design discipline in a multi-disciplinary context that overlaps and influences people’s daily lives; develops new skills in rapid visualization, fabrication and critical thinking; and ultimately engages in the process of creating marketable, manufacturable and meaningful product design solutions.
“Having Aziza honored with the 2022 IDSA Young Educator Award by the Industrial Designers Society of America is a great benefit to our program and students,” said Interior Design Director Lindsey Bahe. “Our faculty knew that we were extremely fortunate to welcome Aziza to our program this past year as she has an impressive academic and professional resume that positions her to be a role model to our students looking to enhance their academic plan with a product design minor. Her interdisciplinary training is a distinct advantage in Aziza’s ability to thoughtfully teach product design knowledge to students with various educational backgrounds. Aziza’s expertise in rapid visualization, fabrication, sustainability and design for the “greater good” are all topics students are passionate about – and her enthusiasm further brings awareness and more opportunities to impact student engagement with design education from a new point of view.”
In addition to her recent curricular endeavors, Cyamani teaches DSGN 110-Design Thinking, IDES 201-Introduction to Product & Industrial Design, IDES 417-Product Design and a professional elective IDES 491-Contemporary Issues in Product Design.
All candidates who qualify for annual IDSA awards are rigorously evaluated by IDSA's awards committee and subsequently approved by IDSA's Board of Directors before being presented with the recognition they have earned.
