Mohammad Valizadeh Alvan, Parsons MFA Lighting Design and Architectural Design ’25, Wins Scholarship from Illuminating Engineers Society of New York City
In popular culture, the image of a storyteller is usually a writer or public speaker sharing words of wisdom with an appreciative audience. For Mohammad Valizadeh Alvan, a dual degree MFA student in Lighting Design and Architectural Design at Parsons, he aims to be a storyteller whose designs communicate, inspire, and facilitate learning for people from all walks of life.
Recently, Alvan was awarded a merit scholarship from the New York City section of the Illuminating Engineers Society, which will provide instrumental funds for him as he begins his final thesis year at Parsons. As a teaching assistant and sustainability advocate at Parsons, he strives for academic excellence and environmental stewardship, and is committed to creating better-lit environments because he believes in the power of lighting to inspire and elevate human experiences.
“The scholarship has elevated my expectations of myself as a representative of our school’s lighting program and the lighting design community,” explains Alvan. “It validates my efforts, inspires me in many aspects, and boosts my confidence in my future endeavors, motivating me to continue striving for excellence in my studies and career.”
Alvan is originally from Iran, where he hopes to use this award to pursue his goal of establishing a standard, accessible lighting design pedagogy in his home country for the first time. As a designer, he is routinely inspired by simple events and ordinary things, and reminds himself to be mindful of his surroundings at all times.
“In addition, one particular method that I delved more into in lighting design was the power of making physical mock-ups to evaluate the efficacy of my design by seeing them realized in the physical world, which sometimes inspires me to do things more than I had envisioned in the first place.”
During his time at Parsons, Alvan has been given countless opportunities to get to know himself better, nourish his design thinking skills, and grow his confidence as a designer. Parsons also introduced him to the field of lighting design, and allowed him to turn his Master of Architecture into a dual degree MFA with Lighting Design.
“I never knew I could be this interested in a new field. Understanding the power of light, an intangible phenomenon mostly neglected in architecture due to not having a foundational understanding of it, has opened a new world in my mentality and future as a designer.”
In true Parsons form, Alvan collaborated with a team of students from the School of Constructed Environments to showcase their work at the NYCxDesign exhibition during the Spring 2024 semester, which was well received by the media and exhibit attendees. Additionally, Alvan created an installation called “Infinite Unity” for the IESNYC student lighting competition, which received an honorable mention.
The installation was a conceptual light fixture that explores the interconnectedness of individuals across the globe, and utilized a wire globe adorned with small mirrors on its interior surface, with a laser positioned outside the globe to create a mesmerizing network of light.
In addition to Alvan’s recent accomplishments, he is also the new recipient of a scholarship from the International Association of Lighting Designers. His winning design, an office project, was created in collaboration with fellow classmates Freni Shah and Soyeon Kim, and consisted of two floors divided among the group. Alvan comprehensively designed his floor, and designated different lighting scenes for the same multi-functional hall.