Alumni News

With our FDM banner nicely displayed along with a beautiful garment on a form, Drs. Reilly, McCarthy, and Cristi-Kim had the opportunity to meet with Farrington High School students during their Career and College Fair on April 6th. Students from the various Academies visited the FDM booth and shared their interests in the different areas of the fashion industry. Many of the students enthusiastically discussed their interest in fashion design and styling, which is a trending area in the industry among the Generation Z cohort. Some of the students we spoke to weren’t sure what industry they’d like to pursue, which is a common theme amongst high school students, but were impressed by the work (from various FDM courses) from our FDM students nevertheless. This was a wonderful recruitment event, and we are grateful to have been invited to share our program with the Farrington High School students and talkstory with them. We look forward to participating in more Farrington High School fashion events, as well as the opportunity for more partnerships with our local high schools. 

--Abby Cristi-Kim and Minako McCarthy

We are very pleased to announce that two FDM instructors, Minako McCarthy and Abby Cristi-Kim, have completed their PhD programs in the College of Education in the Educational Foundations program. Minako McCarthy completed her PhD program in Fall 2022.  Her dissertation focused on biases within multicultural and diverse education environments.  Minako is an instructor of design and teaches design techniques, collection development, and fashion show production.  She was motivated to pursue a PhD to improve her practices inside the classroom.  “For the future,” Minako said, “I would like to expand my research areas to students’ intersectional in fashion in Hawai`i and elsewhere.”  Abby Cristi-Kim completed her PhD program in Spring 2023.  Her dissertation focused on undergraduate mentoring and relational pedagogy, which aligns with her duties within FDM, teaching classes in merchandising, internship, and capstone.  Abby has observed that a strong mentor-student relationship impacts the undergraduate experience in professional, personal, and collaborative ways....[For the full article, click "Read more"]

Over the past decade, CRISPR genetic engineering tools have become an essential technology in numerous industries, including food and agriculture, drug development, and therapy, as well as for ongoing scientific research. Yet, says Rock, Zhi-Yan Du of the Dept. of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering, these Clustered Regularly Intersced Short Palindromic Repeats systems are “not well understood in the general community, leading to fears and misunderstandings about genetic engineering and an overall anti-science outlook.”

The length of the day plays a large role in the development of sweet onion bulbs, thus farmers in Hawaiʻi have historically been limited to growing only “short-day” onions, especially during the winter when days are shorter. However, there are options for growing intermediate-day varieties in the summer months, and this potential opportunity drew more than 30 growers and community members to Extension’s recent field day at Poamoho Experiment Station.

Congrats to the UH Entomology team, and good luck in November! Consisting of grad students Michelle Au, John Adam Lawrence, Maisha Lucas, and Juliana Salehi of the Dept. of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences, the team took 1^st place at the Pacific Branch Entomological Society of America meeting on April 3 in Seattle.