Prestigious design fellowship goes to student with self-designed major

Matt Safian ’15 won a design fellowship from a famous Silicon Valley venture capital firm.
Matt Safian ’15 won a design fellowship from a famous Silicon Valley venture capital firm.

Matt Safian ’15  was one of 12 students out of more than 2,000 applicants to win a design fellowship from the famous Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The other 11 KPCB Fellows during summer 2013 were almost entirely from Harvard, Yale, Stanford and schools that teach only art and design. He was the only student selected from a liberal arts college.

KPCB Fellows are assigned to the venture-capital firm’s portfolio companies. Safian served at Luvocracy, an online social-shopping start-up built around recommendations from fellow shoppers. He worked as a product designer, crafting interfaces to improve user experience, whether through the website or mobile application.

Now a junior, Safian is composing a self-designed major he calls “Experience Design” that will combine study in graphic design, computer science, psychology, sociology and anthropology. He said he would someday like to start his own company or create a product that changes the lives of people everywhere.

His supervisor at Luvocracy, Brooke Thompson, head of design, said, “What I love about Matt is that he knows what he wants to be and that he is at a school that supports him in building a major that best supports his career goals.”

Safian’s design portfolio can be seen online at www.mattsafian.com.



October 1, 2013