Merit Award

Tamanna Shirol is an industrial design graduate (product design and development concentration) with minors in marketing and visual communication design. She is a recipient of the IDSA (Industrial Design Society of America) Merit Award for their 2026 IDC & Education Symposium Student Merit Award Exhibition in the undergraduate category. She will be continuing higher education at NYU in MS in Emerging Technologies (user experience design concentration). Ms. Shirol designs to create access for everyone. 

Her work for the IDSA Student Merit Award brings together three projects spanning industrial design and user experience design: Cultivar, a modular home growing system that makes rare, culturally specific ingredients accessible in small living spaces; AtlasTax, a guided tax-filing experience for international students that replaces confusing IRS paperwork with simple, confidence-building steps; and Root, a therapeutic diffuser for individuals with Alzheimer's that uses scent to gently trigger memory and emotional connection.

Tasnim Saada was a recipient of the IDSA (Industrial Design Society of America) Merit Award for their 2026 IDC & Education Symposium Student Merit Award Exhibition. Ms. Saada earned her Master’s in Design from San Francisco State University in 2026. 

Her work focuses on bridging the physical and digital worlds to foster cross-cultural understanding. This builds directly on her background at UC Davis, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Cinema and Digital Media with a minor in Religious Studies. She has conducted research on media representations of refugees and Muslims. Driven by the intersection of visual storytelling and user-centered design, her work focuses on how digital experiences can shape public perceptions and connect diverse communities.