Prior to her time at Kent, she worked in Chicago as a designer for The McGraw-Hill Companies, several design firms and a local university. Jillian received her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, her BFA from SUNY Fredonia and studied in Basel, Switzerland at the Basel School of Design. As an educator, her research interests include concept and process development, creativity, design pedagogy and typography. Gretchen Caldwell Rinnert is an Associate Professor in the School of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University. She teaches interaction and motion design. She is a graduate of North Carolina State University's College of Design. As a researcher, her work focuses on the intersection of design and education, classroom participation, and tools that aid in understanding and comprehension. She is an avid traveler, having studied abroad in Brazil in 2002.