April 22, 2010

This year 95 Westphal students from eleven of our different majors were among the over 500 Drexel students who participated in Research Day. Our students' work always looks markedly different and in addition to traditional poster presentations, our students presented videos, performances and digital media. All of their hard work and creativity paid off. Graduate Interior Design student, An-Ting Chu, won a University award in the Graduate Creative Arts & Design Category and a Westphal Award of Merit for his project Smell Identity- The Power of Odor Effect in Interior Design which explored companies on the forefront of multisensory branding who extended their corporate identity to not only include logos, colors and music, but also utilize our sense of smell to make their branding more unique and explicit.

The college also presented awards. Matthew Morton, Digital Media student, and his co-creators Chad Porche, Cara Schroeder, Kerry Russo, Burak Ozmucur and Kurt Gawinowicz, won first place for their project Social Graffiti which combined design, architecture, technology and social media to create an abstract that proposes to use animation and breakthrough innovative technologies for a site specific installation to be projected on the exterior of Nesbitt Hall. The project will enable viewers to directly participate via Twitter by sending messages that will be included in the building-size animations. Graphic Design student, Caitlin Guendelsberger, won second place for her project The Library: Preservation, Involvement, Advancement, in which she produced innovative books and mailers that included paper engineering which told the story of how traditional library services combined with new technologies are bringing the library of the past into the future. Caitlin’s designs are to be used as outreach to important donors to garner support for the Free Library’s ambitious building and programming plans in a time of economic decline and decreased support.  Jeffrey Ginsberg, Digital Media student, and his co-creators Dave Roy, Christian Bartos, Alejandro Valdes, Chris Fagan, Bradford Dorman and Scott Landau, won third prize for their project Independence Historic National Park Instant Navigator Mobile Application, a mobile phone application that will serve visitors to the Independence Historic National Park by using GPS navigation and iPhone development resources. Jeffrey is working with the National Park Service and there appears to be a reasonable chance that this project may be adapted by the National Park Service.

Westphal Awards of Merit were given to Rebecca Abboud, Television Management student, and her co-creators Aleetha Clanton and Maxwell Haddad, for their short movie Frank Bender: Forensic Artist and Freedom Fighter, which will be featured in the Ni Una Mas exhibition opening in May; Roberta Harrington, Television Management student, and her co-creators Meredith Spinelli, Yannick Skerritt, Aleetha Clanton, Yiyan He, Ryan Maquire, Colleen McAndrew, Mansour Faye, Joe Terry, Rebecca Abboud and Liz Yankak, for their video Global Media and the Water Crisis; David Myers, Digital Media student, and his co-creator Girish Balakrishnan, for their project Stone Age Meets Digital Age in which he produced 3D Scans of 65 million year old fossilized crocodile bones;and Grace Gamble, Dance student, for her choreography Distorted Reflections. Congratulations to all of the students, faculty and staff that helped make Research Day such a proud day for our college and special thanks to Graphic Design Program Director Jody Graff, Interior Design Associate Program Director Ada Tremonte, Architecture and Interiors Associate Department Head Rena Cumby, and the Graphic & Interior Design students who designed the great floor plans for the DAK and all the signage and print materials for this year’s Research Day.