People standing around a hanging purple structure and observing the details. M.S. Design Technology
Program Objectives

Our Master of Science in Design Technology is specifically designed to: 

  • Afford students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds opportunities to expand their creative design potential by increasing their knowledge and understanding of material and computational design, digital fabrication, and emerging materials and technologies at the nexus of biology, materials science, and design.

  • Bridge disciplines and domains with the aim of generating innovations across science and design for applications spanning digital tools, products, responsive materials, and the built environment.

  • Promote a culture of multidisciplinary and multicollege teaching and training across departments and colleges in Ithaca and New York City, including co-mentoring students in project-based design learning to expand offerings in emerging technology areas critical to enhance the university's impact on this growing field.

  • Foster transdisciplinary collaboration and hybrid thinking in design to prepare students for emerging careers in both the academy and in practice and industry.

  • Train cross-disciplinary leaders to engage and develop hybrid creative synthetic thinking in design through generative processes, digital fabrication, emerging technologies, and applications across disciplines.

Design Tech prepares students and graduates to make meaningful impacts both within and well beyond our labs, studios, and classrooms. For example:

  • Our graduate curriculum teaches students to be adept at using design to make use of leading-edge technology.

  • Students prepare to take on key roles in technology, product, and service companies, as well as to start technology-driven entrepreneurial ventures.

  • Design Tech faculty and students have a unique edge in research, which comes from the cross-disciplinary and applied emphasis of the department.

  • We believe that design is the critical element to synthesizing and applying basic research across disciplines to become impactful technology.

Where will Design Tech graduates end up? In industry and practice, our graduates will lead new companies, design units in the tech sector, shape alternative forms of practice, and build foundations that have a positive impact in a changing world. In academia, our graduates will pursue Ph.D.s and lead cutting-edge research and teaching to innovate and invent new products, tools, materials, and interfaces.

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