Students and alumni are at the heart of the Knowledge Integration program. Who better suited to share their experience of the program, what it taught them, and where it has led them?
A Lawyer's Perspective
Zainab Ramahi, Class of 2015
Zainab Ramahi graduated from KI in 2015. Prior to joining Keker, Van Nest & Peters in San Francisco, Zainab served as a law clerk to Judges Richard Paez and Dorothy Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She also previously clerked for Judge Richard Andrews of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. Zainab earned her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law During law school, she served as a Coblentz Civil Rights Research Fellow at Berkeley’s Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, a law clerk with Palestine Legal, and teaching assistant for Berkeley’s legal research and writing program.
Juxtaposition and Integration
Joel Becker, Class of 2017
Joel Becker graduated from KI in 2017 with an emphasis in psychology, social science and computer science. While at UW, he developed open-source entity matching and data extraction tools with Knowledge Integration’s NetLab, enabling interdisciplinary research into large-scale collaboration networks. He now works for Shopify (a Canadian commerce platform / software company) as a data scientist and is continuing to develop his creative interests in music, art videos (using video synthesis and abstract animation), zines, mixtapes, and collages.
From KI Student to KI Manager
Solène Jollivet, Class of 2020
Solène completed the Bachelor of Knowledge Integration in 2020 with focuses in Cognitive Sciences, Psychology, Business and Collaborative Design. In 2024, Solène is back – first as the KI academic advisor then as manager. In this role, Solène provides administrative support to the department and connects with high school students to share her personal experience as a KI alum. In her spare time, Solène explores different hobbies relating to music, reading, sports and connecting with others deeply.
Integrating Knowledge Academically and Personally
Stephanie Tywonek, Class of 2023
Stephanie Tywonek graduated from KI in 2023 with a specialization in science, technology and society, a minor in philosophy, and a diploma in future cities. She hopes to attend graduate school internationally and work in a design field that fully engages the skills she has built through her Knowledge Integration major. Currently, she works as an Account Coordinator for the University of Waterloo’s Co-op program.
Pursuing User-Experience Design
Sam Faulkner, Class of 2023
Sam Faulkner (they/them) graduated from KI in 2023 with minors in Philosophy and Psychology. They originally did a year and a half in Mechatronics engineering before deciding to pursue more user experience design work and transferring to KI. In their final year of KI, Sam completed their thesis in collaboration with the psychology department and a sound processing company in Denmark. Now graduated, Sam is studying a masters of Inclusive Design at OCAD in Toronto going back to Denmark to work with the Eriksholm research centre for their masters thesis research.
Read Sam's full interview
Connecting Science to Society
Maya Treitel, Class of 2024
Maya Treitel graduated from KI in 2024 with a Business Option. She is passionate about gender equality, politics, STEM, space exploration, and everything in between. She has a growth mindset on steroids that looks at the world through a lens of wonder and a sprinkle of design thinking.
Studying Within An Expansive Field
Sophia Armstrong, Class of 2025
Fourth-year Knowledge Integration student Sophia Armstrong is completing a minor in Environment, Resources, and Sustainability and a diploma in Future Cities. Upon graduation in 2025, she will take a gap year before continuing to graduate school for more in-depth work.
Expanding Knowledge
Marcus Chan, Class of 2025
Marcus Chan is a fourth-year Knowledge Integration student. His interests range from creative writing to learning about pedagogy, studying metacognition, rock climbing, and parkour, a gymnastic street sport. He is fascinated by forms of knowledge and is particularly interested in writing a book based on conversations with people with autism.