About the designers
Ashley Creech
Ashley is 18 years old and currently, a freshman at the University of Washington Bothell pursuing two degrees in Media and Communication Studies and Business. She was born in Texas but grew up in the Pacific Northwest with a love for the outdoors which in turn created her passion for photography. Along with taking photos, she likes to spend her free time watching movies, filming short travel videos, playing guitar, writing poetry and eating Vietnamese Pho.
She is passionate about sharing her art with the rest of the world and creating new perspectives. With that, she hopes to one day build a safe space for others to create and showcase their art and work without fear of judgment.
As the documenter of Spill your Tea, Ashley is interested in showcasing the creative process, failures, and successes that was going through to create the final piece. This project is very important to her because of the trust needed to share personal stories with one another and the means to how that operates and builds throughout the creation of the project.
Kevin Cheng
Kevin is 25 years old and he is an international student from China. He is majoring in Law, Economics, and Public Policy. Kevin has been in the United States for 5 years, and he is very interested in financial and Economics. He is a senior of the LEPP major UWB. He is a transfer student from Green River college and this is his third quarter in UWB. He is really enjoying his school life in UWB.
For his school life, he joined CSA which is Chinese student association in UWB. For his career, he owns a board game bar in China and Kevin is good at werewolves. For his personal life, he is good at instruments such as trombone.
Kevin is playing a research role in the project. Since group 4 plan to do the connection between personal story and tea, Kevin is researching tea and tea rituals. Kevin then will take that information and match to each group members story. He then gets to choose different tea sets, tea boxes and tea bags they are going to use.
Wei Dai
Wei Dai is a senior in the Media and Communication studies major. He is 25 years old and came from Shanghai China making him an International Student as well. Sadly, his academic career has not been that smoothly since he has met so many struggles. However, everything changed when he received admission from UWB. He started a new life here.
In UWB he is currently involved in the student network of International students at UW Bothell which is his first on-campus job. His responsibility is to take care all of the transition processes for all the International students. His goal is to make strong networks for the International Students, and also for himself as well.
Wei also calls himself an artist since he has band experience, stemming from high school. He even produced a demo track for our band. Outside of school life and music, he is a Big World of Warcraft Fan who has 10 years WOW experience, 8 yrs Raid Leader, 6 yrs of Guild Master. He often critiques other major AAA games because he feels that most of the AAA games are similar, and there are no strong themes which could help the player to change behaviors. Furthermore, he is a big fan of basketball. He is a big fan of the Spurs’!
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As the researcher of Spill your Tea he is most interested in providing information about tea, since he has been a tea lover since high school. His family also has a strong cultural background with tea. They have a tea collection at home in Shanghai. Wei is most proud of some tea in his collection that is a Pu’re Tea, produced by a 176-year-old Tess tree provider. It's worth 3 years tuition fees! He got this tea from his best friend who owns a tea shop in China. He decided to keep that Pu’re at least 10 years for an natural fermentation, and then he will share it with his family, friends, and others!
Rachel Raymond
Rachel is a 27-year-old PNW born radical queer. Rachel has been a retail manager for the last seven years, managing flagship stores for business such as Storables and Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics. Rachel has been an In-Store Trainer for the same about of time, developing training that was implemented company-wide at Storables, and assisting in training development with Lush. Rachel has been an artist since birth, dabbling in poetry and other prose, performance, music, and photography. She earned her Associate of Arts degree from Seattle Central College, in June 2017.
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Rachel is passionate about creating change in this world. As a queer woman, she has first-hand experience of bigotry and hate in this world, which is why I am so moved to a create future without it. She wants to be on the front lines of change, using her skills to best implement its progress. She deeply enjoys working with her hands. She believes there is a physicality about handcrafts that cannot be replicated in any other way. Thus, she believes making something tactile is very nurturing, beyond the fact that physical prototypes ensure more successful projects.
As the Project Manager of Spill your Tea Rachel is most interested in the intersection of 5 strangers coming together to create and share some of the most intimate moments of their life, and therefore attempting to answer the questions of how does a group slowly build trust, what can I do to ease the transition from classmates, to group members, to friends? This project Rachel has been passionate about because she feels it’s her opportunity to shine and work outside her comfort zone with others from diverse backgrounds from herself.
Kelly ward
Kelly is a 20-year-old non-binary and pansexual femme currently getting their bachelor's degree in “Society, Ethics, and Human Behavior” at the University of Washington Bothell. Kelly graduated from Cascadia College in 2017 with an Associates in Integrated Studies degree. Academically, Kelly is interested in the fields of Gender Studies, Sexuality Studies, Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies.
Kelly uses their queer identity in both the gay community and in the transgender community to incorporate queer experiences and themes into their work, in order to promote awareness and understanding of the LGBTQIA+ community. Kelly plans on using their degree to work with the LGBTQIA+ community, with the goal of helping as many LGBTQIA+ people as possible.
In the group, Kelly’s role is work on creating the Twine story - they are specifically working on creating the flow and design of the story. Kelly has also worked on coming up with the concept as well as other general housekeeping duties.