Visual communicator through doodles and aspiring birder.
Renée Chao is a storyteller and artist with a background in film and architecture. After 10 years of art directing environments featured in films, she took on her favorite part of that design process, learning and talking to people about their stories and transitioned into experience design. Nowadays, Renée is learning and talking to Stanford Design students everyday. She is the Student Experience Lead at the d.school, invested in designing fulfilling experiences outside of the classroom for undergraduate and graduate Design students at Stanford. She helps create meaningful d.school moments when students are exposed to diverse viewpoints, celebrations of milestones, and pauses to recharge throughout their journeys of becoming a designer. Renée has been with Stanford Design since 2013 and was the recipient of the Stanford School of Engineering’s 2023 Kay Bradley Award in recognition for “Consistent Friendliness, Integrity, and Devotion while assisting students”. She has a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in Set & Production Design for Stage & Film from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts. At Stanford, you’ll most likely find her with students, doodling out their next adventure at the d.school.