mfa thesis

overview

I've lived in Davis almost my entire life. I've driven past the Yolo Basin hundreds of times on I-80, like many people who live in Davis have. To me it was easy to overlook, a pretty landscape during the winters when it flooded and not a whole lot more. I misunderstood it. I didn't actually visit it until January 2026 when I decided to explore the basin for my MFA thesis.

There is a lot going on in this space! The basin simultaneously functions as flood control infrastructure, critical migratory bird habitat along the Pacific Flyway, and agricultural land. These roles don't happen separately. They layer on top of each other, shifting with the seasons.

This thesis is an attempt to close that gap through information design, interactive systems, and a planet-centered framework that puts the ecosystem at the center of the work rather than treating it as backdrop. The project translates environmental data and field research into things people can actually encounter in different forms of media and place of time: a website, risograph posters, literature review zines, and a physical exhibition at the Shrem Museum.

the yolo basin

The basin operates across three overlapping identities: flood infrastructure in winter, migratory bird habitat in spring, and agricultural land through summer. These roles do not happen separately.

The big idea behind this thesis is that the Yolo Basin is a living landscape where flood, food, and flight intersect across every season. Design can make that story visible.

research methods

Research for this project was conducted on site as well as through books, journal articles, and citizen science online resources. I spent time walking and photographing the basin across different seasons, mapping spatial and seasonal patterns, and collecting data from environmental research monitoring projects, and working alongside UCD researchers. I also completed an extensive creative literature review system based on books about floodplains, migratory habitats, citizen science, and design communication.

I also in my first year in the MFA program at UC Davis explored other methods of design and communication. You can explore a side quest exploration within the space of card games and enviromental communication within reserved land spaces here ↗.

influences

Three projects shaped how I thought about communicating ecological information to public audiences.

Wingspan (2019) showed how real ecological data can become a playable, learnable system without losing scientific accuracy. Players learn bird behaviors through repeated interaction rather than instruction. Learn more about the game here ↗.

Xeno-canto (2005) translates birdsong into visual spectrograms paired with geographic metadata, creating an interface that works for both experts and curious newcomers. It also demonstrated how crowdsourced citizen science can fill gaps that long-duration data collection cannot. Check out xeno-canto.org ↗ and find Yolo Basin specific recordings here: Yolo Basin species page ↗

This Is a Picture of Wind (2018) by JR Carpenter is a hybrid web and print project documenting flooding through diary entries. It showed how multiple formats create multiple entry points into the same material. I suggest actually checking this website out as it's very beautiful and made with code! https://luckysoap.com/apictureofwind/main.html ↗

Together these pointed toward an approach built on interactive learning, participatory ecology, and personal storytelling around ecological concerns.

design outputs

interactive website

Visit the interactive website @ floodplainfutures.github.io ↗

The website is the central platform for the project. Built in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it features interactive maps showing basin geography and seasonal change, data visualizations of ecological processes, and field notes from site visits. It is designed to be displayed on a monitor as part of the exhibition and accessible online.

poster series

Four risograph-printed posters: three tabloid posters on the basin's core themes (flood, migration, and agriculture), plus a hand-lettered invite poster for the opening night. Printed with the UC CAAN Davis site's Risograph in emerald green & fluorescent pink, then overprinted in black. 300 copies were mass-printed so visitors can take one home.

lit review zines

The literature review process is usually a very daunting process when tackling a thesis. It's usually constrainted to a written paper and lacks the interactive and visual elements that could enhance understanding and excited people to want to read them. As part of the literature review process, I decided to create a series of small foldable zines summarizing and interpreting key readings related to the thesis. Topics include ecological systems, data visualization, design communication, citizen science, and the history and geography of the basin. Around 20 zines total, printed on 8.5x11 and folded down. These are also available to view at the exhibition.

Browse the full zine series: The Lit Review Project ↗

embroidery hoops

Three 6-inch embroidery hoops depicting the basin's three seasonal stages. Each hoop is hand-stitched over printed aerial photographs and maps of the basin, making the abstract geography tactile and intimate. These hung alongside the posters as part of the exhibition wall.

site map

At the exhibition, a large site map places all key locations within the basin I visited during this thesis. Field photos, bird specimen photography, postcards, news clippings, and site maps are pinned and strung together: showing what events have occurred and giving more context to the site itself.

The process of making this site map wouldn't have been possible without the help of many UC Davis organizations and musuems! The UC Davis Map Room helped with finding and scanning the aerial photos of Yolo County (from 1964!) so that I could digitially stitch them together for the giant site map. The Musuem of Fish and Wildlife provided the bird specimen photographed. UC Davis Special Collections and Archives provided the historical postcards, pamplets, posters, informational material and other archival resources from the Yolo Basin Foundation.

ca trails & greenways conference

In April 2026, I presented at the California Trails & Greenways Conference with support from my thesis committee chair and long time mentor Glenda Drew. The session, Trails by Design: Designing for Shared Ecological Understanding, covered two projects: my MFA thesis work on the Yolo Basin, and a separate signage project I did with Professor Emily Schlickman at Stebbins Cold Canyon. The session was structured as a mini-workshop, part framework overview, part hands-on zine-making.

Attendees worked through the planet-centered design framework using both projects as case studies, then made their own single-page zines about a trail or greenway they knew personally. The zines were collected, printed, and mailed back to participants afterward.

workshop

☜ prev next ☞

exhibition

The exhibition opened June 4th, 2026 at the Manetti Shrem Museum at UC Davis and ran through June 20th. The space brought together every part of the project: the interactive website on a touchscreen, the bulletin board of field research, three framed risograph posters, hand-embroidered hoops, and a shelf of literature review zines to browse and take home.

installation process

☜ prev next ☞

Installation took a few days for me to complete. Our design program has a class dedicated to prepping for this process but it is the student's main responsbility to develop and build their final exhibit. Coming from a background nowhere near exhibit design, I had a huge, but exciting, learning curve. I had to figuring out what goes next to what, how visitors move through the material, where the eye should land first. If I am real honest my favorite part of the project that really grounded the work and a fun eye catcher are the vinyl birds. I bought black vinyl and cut them out at home with my Cricut! It was my first time making wall decals and I would so do it again (maybe even with the same birds)!

installation views

☜ prev next ☞

thesis document

Coming from a more creative background, writing is not usually my biggest strength however I was incredibly excited to get to do this! The process of writing was challenging but rewarding. The document had to do what my design outputs couldn't: explain the reasoning, name the framework, situate the work inside existing research. Going in this direction I had to adjust as I had chosen zines as I feel academic journals keep knowledge locked away from the people who live closest to the landscapes they study however for this program writing a thesis helps me add to the research space and contribute to design methodologies.

These fields hold floodwater in January, grow rice in July, and feed birds all year. To understand the basin means understanding how these three systems depend on and enable one another.

thesis, p. 12

closing reflections

The exhibition closed on June 20th, 2026. Deinstalling felt like all things at once: relief, surreality, a little bit of exhaustion, and a lot of gratitude that it happened at all.

The most rewarding part was the messages that came after. Thank you to all the people who reached out online! So many people online and offline took the time to share with me what they enjoyed about the exhibit and their own story with the basin. I heard from others like myself who had driven past the basin for years without thinking much of it, and that something in the work made them want to stop and look. It was so exciting to see that my work made a difference and did exactly what I wanted it to do!

This project is meant to show that design can be a tool for making complex environmental systems easier to see, understand, and care about. The Yolo Basin is not a dramatic place at first glance, but it is doing a lot of work, ecologically and infrastructurally, and most of that work is invisible to the people who live near it. While this thesis is in someways done with my paper submitted and the exhibition is closed, the basin will always be there and my relationship with it will always grow. The point of this web page for my thesis is to break down my MFA experience in an accesible format and continue sharing the story and insights from this work with people like you! Whether you're a prospecting MFA student, community member, someone interested in environmental design, or anywhere in between, I hope you find value in the work. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or feedback!