Adrija Haldar (she/her)

College of Fine Arts

Master of Design in Design for Interactions

Hometown: kolkata, india

1. Briefly describe the work you're doing in your program at CMU.

   I’m currently working on my master’s thesis, which focuses on how designers will create work that stands apart in the age of AI affordances. Essentially, with the rise of AI tools, design is now democratic and the learning curves to building anything are fading away. But when everyone has the same powerful tools, the work produced tends to become homogenous. Designers are now asked to build with taste, intent and judgement, but what does that actually mean? I am investigating whether these are indeed the factors that account for work that stands out from the crowd, and if so, what design principles follow from them? Leading from these principles, what does the design process of the future look like, and what can designers build with it?  

    

   In addition to this, I’m also researching with CMU’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute on how to design intelligent widgets for human-agent autonomy controls--basically, where do we draw the line between agent action and human intervention? I’m really excited to see where both of these projects are headed!

2. How did you develop an interest in this area? 

   Before CMU, I was a visual designer working within product design teams, helping build large-scale, delight-driven visual identities for a range of products and services. While doing so, I also became interested in getting to design “how” we as human beings experience the products we are surrounded with. I realized that “delight” isn't just relegated to a beautiful visual we see, but could also be designed into how we experience anything around us. That sparked my interest in interaction design, and that’s how I ended up at CMU’s School of Design.

3. What are your academic and/or professional goals? 

   I have always been interested in innovative, exploratory work that doesn’t stick to current precedents, so I am very excited to see where my thesis and research take me. I would like to build a career where these two remain my core tenets, no matter which part of the design industry I land in. I also aspire to become as multidisciplinary as I can, because I don’t want to stop learning about all the wild and wonderful ways you can design experiences. To me, it’s almost like adding one creative weapon in your arsenal after another. One of my other longstanding goals is to become a design leader in my own right, because I think I would do a great job at it, and also because it's a space very much lacking in female representation at this moment.

4. How do you spend your time beyond academic work?

   I usually watch a ton of movies and TV shows in my free time. Horror and psychological thrillers are my current favorites, and I have a top 10 list that I’m slowly making my way through. I also really like museums, so I’ll often go out to the Andy Warhol Museum in the city downtown, or to the nearby Carnegie Museum of Natural History. I had a huge Jurassic Park phase as a kid, and dinosaur fossils never fail to cheer me up. Sometimes when I need a break from class, I go for a swim in the CUC pool, or I go lie in the grassy lawns opposite the tennis courts (particularly when it's cold and the sun is out). Just being there with the trees, the grass, and the sky helps me to destress. Most days I’ll even take a sketchbook with me and get a sweet treat and spend an hour without any screens around me.