Maria Alejandra Sandoval-Avila
Design Fellow
The first thing to know about Male is that her name is really long – Maria Alejandra Sandoval-Avila, so everyone calls her Male.
Male’s career as a designer began at the Los Andes University in Bogota Colombia where she took part in two projects. The first with a gang of youth, assisting them in creating productive life plans through their artistic expressions. The second working with a homeless population in Bogota helping them create a collective memory of places in which they gather.
After graduating, Male worked on a project designing innovation for artisanal mining communities. Male felt the need to learn more formal research methods and theory to help legitimize her work as a social designer and moved to New York where she is currently enrolled in the Design for Social Innovation program at the New York School of Visual Arts.
Male’s long term dream is to bring design thinking back to Colombia and reframe what social innovation looks like.
Fun facts: She spent one summer working in a Salmon plant in Alaska, and was a child model in Colombia appearing in coke commercials and local soap operas.
