Designing Curiosity with Cassini Nazir

The Designer-in-Residence program exists to enrich the Master of Arts in Design and Innovation (MADI) program through direct engagement with outstanding professional designers and our students. We want our students to be exposed to professional designers and we want professional designers to have access to our students.

We believe that designers—whether they are in school or not—are never done learning and we’re confident that this program encourages a posture of continual and reciprocal growth. We seek to find a Designer-in-Residence(DiR) each semester to engage with students and our program both inside and outside the classroom.

There are some specifics to this role, however we want to leave this opportunity open to the designer’s discretion. Each designer is different and we want their experience with our masters program to reflect that.

Cassini was our Designer-in-Residence during the Spring 2020 and was our 7th designer to serve in this role. We learned so much from him and we're excited for you all to have the chance to as well!

Cassini Nazir, is currently a clinical associate professor at University of North Texas (UNT) and was previously a clinical associate professor and founding director of the School of Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication (ATEC) Usability Lab at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). Throughout his career, he has explored three primary areas, including using transdisciplinary collaboration as a sustainable design process, applying information architecture and experience design across various human senses, and making data more meaningful through design. His academic projects include collaborations with art historians, biochemists, brain scientists, materials scientists, new media artists, futurists and university publications. In addition, Nazir has conducted workshops for industry partners such as Intuit, Toyota, Sabre and projekt202. 

Nazir received a B.A. in Literature, a B.A. in Economics and Finance, and an M.F.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Dallas. He also earned a certificate in User Experience from the Nielsen Norman Group, a computer user interface and experience consulting firm.