UC DAAP students recognized for achievement in cooperative education

Cincinnati native Eugenia Campos sought out and secured remarkable co-op opportunites with first-rate firms in the U.S. and abroad: Woods Bagot in New York, Nunzio Marc Desantis in Dallas, and Jose Manuel Peinado Architecture in Seville, Spain. She kept her focus on achieving professional competency and carefully reflected on each experience. By the time Campos finished, she had led the design of a project and led an in-house research project on the use of AI in architectural design.

At UC-DAAP, Jodie Pierce proactively sought co-ops assignments that aligned with her skills and interests. With minors in environmental studies and chemistry, she secured a co-op at biomaterials startup Welles, where she contributed to Air Force and Space Force projects and even led an NIH project worth millions of dollars. At Calvin Klein – where she was one of three design interns chosen from a pool of more than 5,000 applicants – she earned a company award that commended her professionalism, work ethic and initiative.

Brooklyn native Amiaya Alleyne took her creative practice into the greater Cincinnati community, working with local non-profits Keep Cincinnati Beautiful, ArtWorks and Heartfelt Tidbits on a variety of murals and neighborhood revitalization projects.

Alleyne says her co-op experience has solidified her identity as a collaborative public artist.

She envisions a career that combines design and community engagement, using art as a tool to amplify black voices and create shared experiences.

Logan Oskey is a humble, talented designer who puts the well-being of others into his designs. Designing toys was his dream, but this industry is notoriously tough to get into. He failed to land a co-op his first round, but instead of being defeated, he took the opportunity to sharpen his skills and strengthen his portfolio, and the next time, he got it! He proved himself good enough that Fisher Price asked him back, and then Mattel took him on. After graduation, Logan will start his dream job with Mattel in California.

Charles Choi worked for a variety of firms and organizations, including the City of Kettering (Ohio), ArquitectonicaGEO, the Environmental Protection Bureau of Macao, and Takano Landscape, where he honed his digital visualization and design skills. He created vibrant urban landscape designs in Miami, Florida, provided environmental monitoring and data collection in Macao, and contributed to sustainable landscape designs in Japan.

As a graduate student in design, Justin Pokorski set clear learning objectives to support his intended career path in research and education. Appropriately, for his work experience, Pokorski taught two undergraduate graphic design courses and served as a graduate research intern at the Live Well Collaborative. His co-op advisor describes him as an enthusiastic and diligent student, humble and always open to feedback.