Larrea Young

After completing her dual degree in Fashion Design and Textile Design at Indiana University, Larrea founded her own studio to create products and illustrations for clients doing good in the world. Her projects started small with things like transforming the drawings of children with cancer into stuffed animals, but this work quickly led her to partner with a startup medical technology company working to end infant death from hypothermia. Larrea joined the company as their Lead Designer and COO, and designed an incubator blanket that worked in conjunction with the company’s phase-change heat pack to provide safe, non-electric warmth to vulnerable infants.
 
After taking the incubator blanket through the regulatory stages and into the market, Larrea had discovered a passion for collaborating with teams and stakeholders to design effective solutions for large-scale problems. She decided to return for her Master's of Design from the University of Michigan, where she honed her skills as a human-centered designer and strived to shape more equitable and sustainable food systems. She continues to create designs that help to reduce social disparities and improve the lives of others in her role as Design Project Manager for Michigan Medicine and through partnerships with a diversity of clients from USDA WIC to The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History to small non-profits.