Rate My Professor Kathryn Rivera

Rivera developed the course Autism for the Built Environment (IND 2290), which provides students with hands-on opportunities to assess spaces constructed or renovated for those on the autism spectrum, identifying successful design features and potential improvements. She and her faculty colleagues invested over three years in achieving accreditation for the Interior Design program from the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA) in 2018. To prepare students for professional success, Rivera organizes visits to active job sites, connecting academic instruction with real-world industry practices. She derives great satisfaction from observing student progression from initial basic line drawings to advanced, realistic renderings capable of addressing complex design problems by the end of their program. As profiled in a 2019 faculty spotlight, Rivera was pursuing her Ph.D. in architectural studies, concentrating on autism within educational settings, and articulated that interior design appealed to her for its human-centered approach to shaping everyday interior spaces where people spend much of their time.