In Conversation With Yun-Hsuan Tsai and Quincy Drane
January 2024
IESNYC President Shoshanna Segal initiates conversations with colleagues and leaders in allied organizations to discuss relationships between the organizations and respective roles in different building industry sectors. We’re raising awareness about lighting, building coalitions, and covering hot topics – all to advance the art and science of lighting to benefit society as a whole.
Yun-Hsuan Tsai and Quincy Drane, Co-Presidents, LUX Parsons
IESNYC: We’re looking for ways that established professionals can better support emerging professionals as they're coming up through schools, like the MFA program at Parsons [Parsons School of Design at The New School], and into the working world. Let’s start with the goals of LUX Parsons. And where do we intersect already?
TSAI: LUX Parsons is a student-run organization, and all of us, at least for now, are from the lighting design program or a double-major/dual-degree program, which is lighting design and architecture or lighting design and interior design. But we are actually open to all students in the New School who are interested in lighting. We’re also looking forward to having more connection with students from other schools, like New York School of Interior Design and City College.
We still focus on Parsons-related workshops and networking events. This semester we invited some professionals for a really good wiring workshop. We’d like to have more lighting professionals come and present lectures. Or some cross-disciplinary presentations, reaching people outside of lighting; like talking to psychology students about circadian lighting. Raising awareness. I’m thinking it would be useful to connect our students to other fields here at the university.
DRANE: I met someone at Lightfair who was researching outdoor lighting and the environment, specifically aquatic life. Cross discipline conversations sometimes open your eyes to what else is out there. It changed my level of interest in how lighting design impacts other disciplines beyond how we see. And she was excited to hear everything I had to say about what I've learned so far.
IESNYC: That’s so cool. It wasn't my project, but I know aquatic life was a big factor in the lighting for Little Island [by Fisher Marantz Stone].
You should immerse yourself in as many disciplines and as many different ideas as you can. That will only help you develop as a designer. It's not just, can we get enough light on the table for people to see? It's how can we do that in a way that's holistically supportive of what needs to happen in the space? Understanding as much as you can about psychology, about physiology and vision, is only going to help you moving forward.
And of course we’re interested in raising awareness about lighting in other disciplines. We don't do as good a job talking outside of our silo as we do talking inside our silo.
There are a lot of separate affinity programs
DRANE: I’m wondering if there’s a way IESNYC can connect us with the affinity programs that are within lighting. For example, WILD [Women in Lighting + Design] and BUILD [Black Unity in Lighting & Design].
IESNYC: The Asian Lighting Community is another, and NACLIQ [North American Coalition of Lighting Industry Queers]. It’s extremely important to feel seen within your professional community.… We do promote a lot of information from those kinds of allied organizations, and we've partnered with Equity in Lighting so that we can make our support for the spectrum of affinity groups as broad as possible.
DRANE: It would be best to have them all in one room, so that there's always that touch point back together. There's also the worry that multiple groups are setting up similar events. Is there a way to hold a space for all of us to come together to be able to talk, and then still have space for them to be on their own?
IESNYC: That's one of the reasons that we’re very supportive of Equity in Lighting, because it covers equity more broadly. Elaine Cook is a powerhouse, and she has members of most of those organizations on the board. She had a very specific ask of the larger, legacy organizations: she asked us to commit to doing two programs a year that would fall under the Equity in Lighting banner. And that’s really pushed us in a direction that we already wanted to go. Our next equity program is on low vision and accessible lighting.
I think you're right to hold the IES accountable for doing more of that, and I want to encourage you guys to continue to push. That’s one more reason to join the IES early in your career. We so value your participation as the vanguard of our community. We want to support you on your journey.
TSAI: I’ll be sure to share that information at our program meetings.
Visiting professionals
IESNYC: We’re also happy to assist with making connections to speakers on any lighting-related topic. There are so many world-class designers concentrated in NYC and as students, you should have access to them. If we can help making those connections, all you need to do is ask!
TSAI: We have our biggest event next semester, in February. It’s called Pro Tango.
IESNYC: That’s kind of a mixer slash job fair. I’ve attended in the past. It’s a great program.
DRANE: I would describe it as an inverse career fair, where the students are at the booths with their work and portfolios, and then the professionals come in to chat with the students. We’d like to have it feel more like a networking event and less of a high-pressure, heavy employment opportunity space.
IESNYC: If I remember correctly, it used to be more of a dinner event, more conversational, so I like the idea of it being more of a networking event to get a better feel for personalities. I would love to see professionals come into Parsons more frequently too. EPs [emerging professionals with 5 years or less in the industry] should have a network of professionals from various parts of the industry that they can reach out to for advice and direction.
Mentorship
DRANE: We were discussing establishing some sort of mentorship program. I participated in a mentorship program through Lightfair a couple of years ago, and that was excellent, super helpful. It's less tied to a company relationship and more of an industry relationship. I think it lets you talk more candidly.
IESNYC: 100%! We are working actively on developing a mentorship program. Natalie [Faubert of Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design] and Jean [Jacques of SDA Lighting & Controls] come from different sides of the industry, but they're both very passionate about mentorship. Having some student involvement in implementing this mentorship program is a great idea. I'm hoping to develop a program that will be both useful and replicable.
Many of us in lighting have long careers and the roles we play are varied. I’ve worked as a rep, and I’ve worked for a manufacturer. Both of those roles inform the way I design. So I think we want to match [mentors and mentees] in as many interesting and different ways as we can.
TSAI: I totally agree.
NextGen takes off
TSAI: Maybe LUX could be more officially connected with IESNYC Next Gen? My friends and I really enjoyed the scavenger hunt in September. It’s really special that we can meet younger professionals from different aspects of the industry. They were students like us up until recently, so there’s less stress socializing.
IESNYC: Zachary [Pearson of Fisher Marantz Stone] Brigid [Hardiman of Available Light] and Jess [Kaller of Jess Kaller Design] have been working hard to develop programming for this group. Fundamentally, it's not geared to appeal to established professionals. We've been very gently told that we need to allow the young folks to be young.
Making connections
TSAI: I personally feel like both types of connections are good. The portfolio review at Enlighten Americas was great. I met a lot of senior lighting designers and principals. My friends, they all said they were stressed, but they really got useful feedback on what employers are looking for.
Most of us are international students, so we want to understand a firm’s culture. So a casual conversation with younger professionals is simpler. Socializing can be stressful for a lot of people, so focusing on an activity is helpful.
DRANE: Activities can make unapproachable people more approachable. Even if it's not a full-on team-building activity, but just kind of facilitates chatting. I've gained more confidence because of the professionals who spoke to me first. They broke the barrier, that they might not have even noticed was there.
IESNYC: Quincy, have you been able to find an affinity group or mentors that you identify with?
DRANE: Sure. It's kind of wild that in New York City, being one of the largest cities for lighting design, I've had to go across the country to find a network of professionals that like look like me. And I came from architecture, which is also very bleak. Like only 2% of registered architects identify as Black. I've seen more fallout [attrition] of students that look like me in lighting than I have in architecture due to the lack of feeling supported.
Thankfully, I was connected with Edward Bartholomew through Parsons. This connection led me to join BUILD, which has helped me grow that national network of mentors that I identify with. I was lucky enough to have scholarships and grants to allow me to travel to access these connections.
IESNYC: Do not let the fact that a conference is in San Diego or Chicago or wherever, get in the way of making those connections. It’s important that students know that there is financial help available to attend conferences, from multiple organizations.
Be the bridge
DRANE: As student leaders, we can be a bridge between the next generation and the “elders” in the industry. We can communicate the needs of today’s students as we’re getting ready for interviews and new jobs, and then pull information from industry leaders and disseminate it to the students in return. It’s a model that I’ve seen work: connecting representatives from different organizations.
