Han-Ah Yoo (Hannah) is a fashion designer, researcher in apparel design, and currently a Doctoral Candidate and graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Consumer and Design Sciences (CADS) at Auburn University. She got her MFA in Apparel Design from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, BA in Printmaking at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), and AA in Fashion Design from Seoul, South Korea. Prior to joining the CADS graduate program, she explored various paths, including roles as a fashion designer, an art educator, and an exhibition manager.
Han-Ah’s artworks, utilizing traditional techniques and the latest technologies, have been invited and received honors at national and international juried exhibitions. Her research and design scholarship center on cutting-edge technology in the apparel industry (e.g., AI design, 3D virtual design, digital printing, laser cutting), sustainable apparel production, and apparel pedagogy. She envisions her collaborative work with fellow artists, researchers, and organizations as a catalyst for positive societal
change. Furthermore, she eagerly looks forward to sharing her accomplishments with the next generation within the design field.
She was born in a village surrounded by mountains, grass fields, and streams. Her artistic sensibility was developed by the colorful sights, various auditory, olfactory, and tactile elements from nature. She has explored her design experience under her mother, an educator, and jewelry artist. Fallen leaves, flowers, rocks, beads, fabrics, and leftover leather were her friends. She enjoyed watching how the materials were manipulated, created harmony, and finally became a new form next to her mother.
Eighty years ago, the church where her grandfather and father both worked as a pastor and an educator began with the support of the US army. For that reason, harmony, serving, and sharing has been the most important value of her family, and these became her design, research, and teaching philosophy.