Mandana is a designer, artist, and educator focusing on alternative, sustainable materials and the complex relationships we have with products. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History from 1992-1994, the National Science Museum in London from 1996-2006 and installed as part of a permanent exhibit there in 2006. National Geographic, Vogue, Discovery, NPR, Tire Business and hundreds of other diverse media outlets have featured her company, Used Rubber USA, for its pioneering and fashionable use of waste rubber and other eco aware textiles. In 1994 Mirabella Magazine and Ford Motor Company named her 1 of 1000 most influential women in America. Mandana is a graduate of Brown University and received an MFA from Stanford University’s Joint Program in Design where she was the recipient of the Robert Mondavi Fellowship for Study in the Arts. She also co-created and taught the first sustainability class for the Design Division of Stanford’s Mechanical Engineering Department. Mandana has been on the faculty at Stanford, California College of the Arts, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and Academy of Art and has consulted for organizations such as the Natural Step, an international sustainability think tank. She currently lives in Maine and travels to California annually to teach. www.mandanamacpherson.com
Gigi Obrecht Project Coordinator, Design Lead
Gigiis a San Francisco based designer and artist whose work focuses primarily on presenting connective relationships through design. She studied Fine Arts and Art History at Skidmore College and Graphic Design at Parsons School of Design and at California College of the Arts. She is former faculty of CCA’s Graphic Design and MFA in Design programs. She was a founding partner of the internationally recognized design studio Post Tool. Post Tool garnered numerous awards and recognition in the field of interaction and print design over it’s 20 year history. Their work was featured in ID Magazine, Eye Magazine and Communication Arts and was widely published in books focused on design culture. The studio was nominated for The Chrysler Award in 1999 for design innovation. Their work was included in the National Design Triennial at the Cooper Hewitt in 2000 and they received the SECA award from SFMOMA for their work in experimental interaction design in 2001. Today Gigi works collaboratively with a range of clients as a graphic designer and design strategist. She brings to the Rubber Impact team her years of experience and skills to realize strategic design across media. @ggsf2319
Impact Grant Project Members
Niko Sabah Fabrication, Tube Wrangler, 2019-2021
Niko was born and raised in North Lake Tahoe, California, an experience that has fostered a lifelong emphasis on recreation in nature and connection to the outdoors. A variety of professional experiences, combined with world travel, have led him to his current creative journey and his study of Industrial Design at California College of the Arts in SF. With an emphasis on sustainability and craft, Niko aims to bring about alternative approaches to past narratives while at the same time igniting, through design, the deeper pleasures of every day life.
Ellen Field Information Design, 2019
Ellen is an industrial designer and 2019 graduate of California College of the Arts in San Francisco. At CCA, she was part of CTRL+S, a student-led organization that arranged a series of talks with design professionals for students. Her work focuses on emotional experiences and human relationships. She has experience with user research, design for manufacturing, and rapid prototyping, and has done extensive materials research for many of her projects, including a full LCA and detailed supply chain for Abode, a sustainable mattress/bedframe system. In 2018, she designed and built interactive models for fashion designer Jennifer Wang’s ANTIDOTE series, which was selected for the CFDA+ fashion future graduate showcase.
James Seckelman Tube Wrangler, 2019
James is a graduate of the Individualized program at CCA where he specialized in industrial design and furniture arts. His design practice aims to be holistic in nature considering C2C and circular economy thinking in order to innovate strategies that can mitigate waste in the cycle of consumption. James is dedicated to thoughtful community activism and working with others in order to design better futures for the planet. His key interests are found in the study of materials and stakeholder research and analysis.
