San Francisco State University
PROJECTS 2025
Urbon
FINALIST PROJECT
Elliot Ostergaard, Huan ChanG, Luke Seeley, Xin Zhang
Along California’s North Coast, 96% of kelp forests have disappeared due to warming oceans and purple urchin overpopulation. Restoration efforts struggle to repurpose removed urchins, limiting funding incentives. Urbon offers a holistic solution by harnessing live purple sea urchins and other marine species to convert atmospheric CO2 into valuable mineral byproducts and food resources. This circular model supports kelp restoration by controlling urchin populations, reducing carbon emissions, and engaging local communities. Urbon creates economic value throughout the urchin lifecycle, promoting a sustainable future that integrates environmental recovery with climate action and social involvement.
JANUS: Kelp Recovery Urchin Trap
NonFINALIST PROJECT
Anshuman Bhusal, Jared Oelschlaegel, Nayo Lancaster, Tasnim Saada, Oussama Bouabsa
JANUS is a passive, modular sea urchin trap designed to support kelp forest restoration along California’s coast, where warming oceans and purple sea urchin overpopulation have devastated once-thriving bull kelp ecosystems. Developed in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy in Mendocino, JANUS uses algae-based bait and leverages urchin behavior—chemotaxis and benthic movement—to guide them into funnel-like entrances. Inside, urchins become disoriented and collect in a mesh net for easy removal. Designed to integrate with ARKEV restoration modules, JANUS allows divers to remove urchins during routine maintenance, offering a scalable, low-impact solution that aids kelp recovery without disturbing surrounding marine life.
Instructors 2025
Dr. Fernando Carvalho is a designer with a primary focus on healthcare service, products and systems. His research integrates participatory design and behavior change to the creation and improvement of healthcare service provision. Fernando is an Assistant Professor in the School of Design at San Francisco State University.
Josie Iselin is an artist, author, and book designer who has been telling seaweed and kelp stories for over a decade. Her two books An Ocean Garden: The Secret Life of Seaweed (2014, reprint 2023 OSU Press) and The Curious World of Seaweed (Heyday, 2019), tap her profound understanding of seaweed’s natural history and her deep connections within the seaweed science community. Both books have won the Tiffany Award for algal communications by the Phycological Society of America. Josie is co-director of the Above/Below campaign whose mission is to make the kelp forests of the oceans as understood as the forests on land. She is the lead author and content director of the campaign’s webstory, The Mysterious World of Bull Kelp, published in November 2023. Above/Below is embarking on the storytelling journey around the native West Coast Olympia oyster. She teaches in the School of Design at San Francisco State University, inspiring the integration of art and storytelling through portfolio design. Her work is on view at josieiselin.com