Google Fellowship — My Application

📋 My Application (Submitted)

Applied April 18, 2026 · Status: Accepted

Fellowship: Google Higher Ed Faculty AI Fellowship, Inaugural Cohort 2026

How I heard about it: Google for Education email (as Gemini Certified Faculty) + personal referral from Thorsten Schaeff (Thor), Developer Experience at Google DeepMind, and Tahui Lee, Visual Designer at Google

Statement of Support: Letter from Troy (senior institutional leader at FIT)

📄 View full original application (verbatim) →

The problem I identified

Once AI closed the technical gap between designers and developers, a new problem took its place: any student can now produce a polished, professional-looking product, so the artifact itself or final outcome no longer proves who actually has the design expertise. That's the problem my Challenge Statement takes on: making that expert judgment, the intellectual fingerprint, verifiable and assessable.

The assessment challenge — "Obsolescence of Artifact-Based Assessment"

With AI-native tools enabling instant, high-fidelity output, the "final artifact" is no longer a reliable measure of student mastery. The real work — strategic orchestration, prompt architecture, and critical curation — often remains invisible, yet it defines a student's true "intellectual fingerprint." This raises a key question: how do we validate Human Creative Art Direction within complex workflows?

The Vision (in my words)

"I hope this fellowship serves as a global laboratory to explore a shift: From Artifact-Based Grading to Cognitive-Process Assessment."

Goal stated in the application: architect a framework that validates Human Creative Art Direction as the core value, protecting the student's intellectual fingerprint in AI-assisted workflows.

Key Quotes From My Application

"Students stopped identifying as 'non-technical' and began seeing themselves as 'Creative Technologists.'"

"AI literacy is less about teaching new tools and more about teaching systemic thinking."

"The future of design education belongs to the 'orchestrators,' those who can leverage AI to bridge the gap between imagination and execution."

"I wanted to move my students away from using AI as a simple 'image generator' and toward using it as a sophisticated architectural partner to build functional, logic-driven digital systems."

Courses Referenced in the Application

Course	Description
CT380 AI-Assisted Design	Primary research lab; non-technical design students leverage LLMs to manage complex digital production pipelines. "Logic-first" pedagogy with a "vibe coding" workflow using Gemini.
CT390 Rapid Prototyping with AI	Explores advanced methodologies for AI to accelerate design ideation, iterative testing, and functional output through "vibe coding" workflows. Launching Fall 2026.

Impact Evidence Cited

AI-Assisted Design Minor: approved and running, affects hundreds of students annually
Student gallery: experiencedesign.nyc/gallery-ai
Presented the FIT model at the UAlbany AI Plus Annual Symposium — peers across the SUNY system sought to replicate the curriculum
Speaking engagements: RISD, Cornell University, Pratt Institute

Industry Connections Confirmed

Thor (Thorsten Schaeff), Developer Experience, Google DeepMind — personally referred me to the fellowship; also one of the book's interview subjects
Tahui Lee, Visual Designer, Google — personally referred me to the fellowship
FIT described in the application as a "dedicated Google Campus"

Institutional Context Stated in the Application

FIT: public college within SUNY, 8,000+ students, NYC, global leader in creative industries education
My title in the application: Professor, Co-Chair of the Creative Technology & Design Curriculum
Department listed: Illustration & Interactive Media / Creative Technology & Design
20 years in higher education