Serene Montgomery

Serene Montgomery is an Interior Design graduate from Kent State University who seeks to practice across various scales and disciplines.

In 2022, she was awarded a CAED Traveling Fellowship for her proposal titled “Daylight + Design,” which involved traveling to Iceland to study light during the midnight sun and polar night phenomena. This led to her award-winning thesis, “Atmospheres of Light,” which received a National Collegiate Honors Council Portz Prize. Serene, in collaboration with Olivia Mansier, also earned second place in the “architecture” category at the Kent State University 2023 Undergraduate Research Symposium. Additionally, she completed an independent design-build project in Austin, TX, designing a home for solitary bees in collaboration with Erika Thomson of TexasBeeWorks.

Serene has practiced interior and architectural design with several firms in the greater Cleveland area, including Bialosky Cleveland, Paskevich and Associates, Hara Architects, and Point B Studio. She has also gained experience in lighting design with Vode Lighting, a firm based in Sonoma, CA.

Currently, Serene is pursuing a Master of Architecture degree at Kent State University, where she continues to explore questions about the built environment and maintain a focus on research.