Danna Krouham's thesis, Chronic: How Understanding Your Pain Can Change Your Pain, is an in-depth analysis of the complexity of the chronic pain system. While researching the intricacy of how chronic pain in the United States is addressed, Danna decided to zero in on uncovering the biopsychosocial model of pain. This body of thesis work proposes solutions to help patients understand their own experiences. "By better understanding their pain, they can actually change their pain. By designing a suite of tools and experiences with a unified biopsychosocial approach, Danna aims to help people understand their pain and reclaim control over their minds, bodies, and souls. This thesis is meant to serve as a learning experience by planting a seed in the reader's mind into unfolding the power the pained have over their pain.

Felix Ho's thesis, Bridged Reality: Using Technology to Nurture Distant Relationships, explores how technologies can break the barrier for those who are dear to us but living far away. When living at a great distance, friends, family, and couples sometimes become estranged. In order to create a new capacity for connection to break the distance barrier, Felix began his thesis exploration with a high-tech intervention that allows users from different locations to have a shared low-tech experience that makes the user feel connected asynchronously.

The latest product to come out of PoD’s partnership with MoMA is this set of Landscape Candle Holders—designed by Class of 2021 alum Zhenxuan Wang.

Margarita Zulueta’s thesis, Weighted: Designing Towards Fat Liberation, investigates how anti-fat bias affects fat-identifying women through the lens of design. Anti-Fat bias is the discriminatory belief that the social stigma against fat people, in the tradition of fat activists reclaiming the term, is justified. Anti-Fat bias is normalized and affects the 1.9 billion adults who are considered to fall within this group. Having experienced the pain of anti-fat bias in her own life due to falling within the small-fat to mid-fat range, Margarita explores and creates products of design to create structures that move towards fat liberation.

At Wanted Design in New York City, the Class of 2023 debuted their semester-long group project, RE-ACTORS. Products of Design students present annually at the NYCxDESIGN Festival, and this year was unique since Wanted Design took place at the ICFF at the Jacob Javits Center!