Meet our Ambassadors
Major: Graphic Design Minor: Informatics
Hi everyone, my name is Angelan! I am studying Graphic Design with a minor in Informatics, and in the future, I hope to be a Graphic Designer or Art Director! Some of my hobbies include reading, drawing (traditional and digital), and journaling. I also love design, so if you have any questions about what it’s like to be a Graphic Design student or anything related to my experience at UIUC please feel free to reach out to me!
Major: Art History Minors: American Indian Studies, Museum Certification
Hi! My name is Cecilia and I’m studying art and art history with a minor in American Indian Studies and also getting my Museum certification here at A&D! My dream is to work in museums! I’m very active on campus with my RSOs and jobs. Besides being an Art and Design Ambassador, I also run the Art and Design social media and work at Krannert Art Museum. I love all things nature and art! I’d love to answer any questions you might have 🙂
Major: BA Studio Art: Sculpture Minors: Advertising & Spanish
Hi! My name is Ivy and I’m a junior studying Studio Art with a sculpture concentration and dual minoring in Advertising & Spanish. I love exploring the possibilities of different mediums and the freedom to create. I spend most of my time outside class being active on campus particularly in RSO’s and campus jobs. Let me know if you have any questions at all!
Major: Industrial Design Minors: Computer Science & Informatics
Hi! My name is Selin and I am a junior studying Industrial Design with minors in Computer Sciences and Informatics. During my time in Illinois, I have truly embraced the variety of opportunities available to me and built my career path toward becoming a website designer! Outside of the classroom, I spend my time oil painting, cooking, traveling, being active in volunteering and exploring the cute coffee shops in the Champaign-Urbana area. I would happily answer any questions you may have!
See Student Work:
Bachelor’s programs
Master’s and doctoral programs
Art & Design on Instagram
The 2026 Welcome Back Picnic and All School Meeting will be held on September 11 @ 4pm in the Link Gallery. Free FOOD, join an RSO, and say hi to old and new friends. This is also an all school meeting!
kinda chic to reshare the one you relate to 🌞
Reward yourself with a sweet treat for surviving the first week of school! Come share a donut with Director Brooke White on Friday August 28th from 9am - 10:30 am in the Link Gallery 🍩
Celebrate the opening of Centering Clay: Connection and Innovation in American Studio Ceramics, meet our new director Stephanie Smith, and experience the first late night of the semester. Enjoy new exhibitions, live music, and a dance party in the galleries.
Opening Night at the Museum!
Thursday, Aug 27, 2026
5–7:30 pm
5:00 pm – Art on view and live music by Ther’Up.Y
6:00 pm – Director and curator remarks in the Link Gallery
6:30–7:30 pm – Dance party with DJ KamauMau
8:00 pm – Museum stays open until 8 pm
Centering Clay features art from the museum’s collection, including work by Katherine Choy, Richard DeVore, Donald Frith, Vivika and Otto Heino, Marvin Lipofsky, Gertrud and Otto Natzler, Don Pilcher, Jerry Rothman, and Peter Voulkos.
The museum is free and open to everyone!
Krannert Art Museum acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.
📣 Calling all new and returning U of I students!
Kick off the school year and celebrate Krannert Art Museum’s newest exhibitions at KAM Fest 2026. Visit Krannert Art Museum to receive a free welcome kit, try printmaking with students from Noble Print Club, and meet our new Director Stephanie Smith, alongside pack-your-own care packages in Rest Lab to "ease on in"—to the new semester.
FREE ice cream or taco to the first 200 students!
Light snacks provided. Event goes until 3:30pm! From 12–2 pm, food will be available for purchase at food trucks parked in front of the museum. Welcome kits will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Join us! @kamillinois
In his new book, "Pastoral`s End: Art, Ecology, and Catastrophe in Renaissance Italy," Art & Design faculty and art historian James Pilgrim reveals how sixteenth-century painter Jacopo Bassano`s art reflected a world already grappling with environmental transformation. Blending art history, ecology, and archival research, the book offers a fresh perspective on how people have shaped, and are shaped by, the landscapes around them for centuries.
Congratulations to Professor Pilgrim on this exciting new publication!
Inspired by Fresh Press Paper (founded at Illinois in 2012 by graphic design professor Eric Benson), Zayed University recently launched Fresh Press Emirates, a hands-on initiative where students turn discarded hotel linens and plant materials into handmade paper for art and design projects.
The program brings together students across art, science, and sustainability while giving them a closer look at circular design and material reuse. Great to see a project that started at Illinois showing up in creative spaces halfway around the world.🌍📜
Read more at the link in bio! @freshpresspaper
Congratulations to Art Education PhD student Syed Faizaan Ahab on receiving the People’s Choice Award in the 2026 Image of Research competition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign! 🎉
Here`s how Syed described his award-winning project, "Move:"
This image captures a video-based research project, "Move," at the intersection of movement, listening, and power. The three performers stand facing the viewer, gesturing classical South Asian dance vocabularies. Yet their bodies are held in stillness rather than spectacle. Their hands articulate meaning, but their expressions remain restrained, refusing explanation and performance as entertainment. This tension highlights how embodied knowledge is often rendered hypervisible yet misread within dominant cultural spaces. The stark lighting and frontal composition render the performers almost haunting, neither fully absorbed by the space nor entirely outside it. This visual ambiguity reflects what Allie Martin describes as the politics of listening, where sound and presence are interpreted through social hierarchies rather than neutral perception. Just as Martin argues that sound "happens in interpretation" (Martin, 2025), this image suggests that movement, too, is legible only through the frameworks viewers bring with them. The performers` stillness becomes a form of sonic restraint, an echo of moments where cultural expression is asked to quiet itself to belong. In this way, the image operates as both documentation and critique: a reminder that presence, like sound, does not require permission to exist, even when it is misheard or only partially seen.
Organized annually by the Graduate College and the Media Commons of the University Library, the Image of Research competition celebrates the creativity, innovation, and intellectual diversity of graduate student research across disciplines.
Join us in celebrating Syed’s incredible achievement and the powerful impact of arts-based research! 👏
