Mulholland instructs Oregon lighting
students during stint as Baker Chair

Dining tables at an upcoming International Association of Lighting Designers fund-raising event will be adorned with innovative light centerpieces made by students at the University of Oregon under the direction of visiting professor Jill Mulholland, a lecturer at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture.

Mulholland was in Oregon January – March 2011 as the Fredrick Charles Baker Distinguished Visiting Chair in Light and Design.

The Baker chair is a position of merit that brings distinguished faculty to the University of Oregon or recognizes the work of current UO professors in the field of lighting design.

“I asked students to make centerpieces that were beautiful, had no glare, were well detailed and within specific proportions,” said Mulholland, who led two lighting classes at UO.  “There were bonus points if humor was included.”

The student designs will be part of a May 18 dinner in Philadelphia to raise funds for the IALD Education Trust, whose mission includes providing scholarships to students studying lighting design, materials to help universities teach lighting design and conducting lighting research.

Mulholland’s students also created larger pieces based on the design of a hospital under construction in New Jersey created by one of her colleagues.

Mulholland's Texas A&M students have lit up the college with spectacular end-of-semester light displays, using light as a medium to elicit emotion. Installations have utilized fire, water and choreographed dance.

Click on images for slideshow

- Posted: Apr. 21, 2011 -

Contact:   Phillip Rollfing, prollfing@archone.tamu.edu or 979.458.0442.