Featured Faculty
Hye-Jin Nae
College of Art and Design
Hye-Jin Nae is an assistant professor in the New Media Design, BFA program. Her 16 years of professional and academic work focuses on creating UI/UX design for consumer products, multiplatform digital experiences, and software solutions. In early 2020, Nae published Ex-Out Creativity Handbook, an Apple and Android mobile application from a $149,955 federal grant project. Nae continues to expand her research as Co-I on an NIH awarded a five-year $2,990,975 grant.
The Ex-Out research project and apps are an open-access digital system to help others create awareness to stop the spread of hate and violence online. Project solutions were created by leveraging emerging tools, a diverse team of students, and Co-I Assistant Professor Miguel Cardona. The project and researchers received notable recognition and invitation for the innovation and creativity panel, Digital Forum at CMU. They were also selected to present in the innovative technology session at Ithaca College, CLS conference at MIT, and Design Practices & Principles conference at UDEM. The project received multiple awards, such as the Gold, Excellence, and Judge’s choice awards from UCDA Design Awards, Winner from American Web Design Awards, and Finalist from Communication Arts Design Competition. The project also received the CAD Frank J. Romano Endowed Prize.
In Nae’s ongoing NIH funded project, Inconspicuous Daily Monitoring to Reduce Heart Failure (HF) Hospitalizations, she utilizes her design expertise to create user-centered mobile and data-driven visualization applications. As a part of the multidisciplinary research team, Nae data visualization solutions combine EMR, the Fully-Integrated Toilet seat data, an AI early-alert system, and a patient’s daily wellness into a single interactive tool for HF physician review. Her industry and academic experience allows her to drive applied design research across multiple domains.
Nae teaches multidisciplinary design classes, where she directly integrates her professional and research experience. She is also a co-founder of a healthcare startup company and contributes her design capabilities to RIT Personalized Healthcare Technology (PHT180). Before her academic career, she worked as a Creative Director and Lead Experience Architect at EffectiveUI, Lead Designer at Yahoo! and Kodak. Nae holds multiple US patents, and her projects gained recognition from leading organizations, including iF Communication Awards, W3 Awards, MITX Awards, Communicator Awards, ITEXPO, Communication Arts, Businessweek, and Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Hye-Jin Nae
Assistant Professor
RIT College of Art and Design