Join DI

There are so many ways to dive into DI at Kent State. There are a number of DI course offerings that let you explore, study and engage in theory and practice of design innovation and work collaboratively to address real world challenges. Our on-campus DI Nodes are open to students to provide maker spaces for collaboration and creation. Annual hackathons are fun and exciting, concentrated bursts of interdisciplinary problem-solving in a time-limited format.

You can even become a member of Kent State’s DI team, with several levels of investment.

  • DI Student Fellows Program

    DI Student Fellows Program

    The Design Innovation (DI) Fellows Program supports students by developing their collaborative innovation skills and empowering them to become leaders of meaningful, positive change. DI Fellows engage in a series of facilitated experiences, projects, and student-to-student learning opportunities that teach them how to embed design innovation into their daily lives and future careers.

    Applications for the 2025-2026 DI Fellows cohort open on Thursday, May 1st, 2025. 

    Apply to be a DI Student Fellow

    The primary goal of the DI Fellows Program is to promote diversity in teams (diversity of disciplines, demographics, thinking, and skills) as a powerful force for innovation and positive change. Students in the DI Fellows Program demonstrate this by using team-based human-centered-design processes and methods to tackle complex societal problems. By participating in this program students learn how to become effective collaborators and leaders, develop the ability to implement challenge-based innovation experiences and projects, and become ambassadors for cross-disciplinary innovation.
     

    Learn More

  • DI Faculty Fellows Program

    DI Faculty Fellows Program

    This fellowship, based in the DI HUB, creates space and time for existing faculty members from ANY field to devote some of their teaching, research and scholarly focus to collaborative, cross-disciplinary projects and DI co-teaching experiences. In this way, we can cultivate a vastly increased local to national awareness of Design Innovation at Kent State that will help to facilitate a cultural change towards a university-wide innovation mindset.

    Learn More

  • DI Hub Membership

    DI Hub Membership

    Membership to the Design Innovation Hub (DI HUB) gives you access to one of the most advanced makerspaces in the region and the collaborative spirit of the Design Innovation Initiative at Kent State.

    Learn More
© 2025 Kent State University All rights reserved.