Mariana Prieto

Mariana Prieto is the Founder of Design for Wildlife, a collective that works with wildlife conservation organizations to achieve large scale, economically sustainable solutions for human-wildlife conflict. Their work focuses on creating solutions that can be economically sustainable, and therefore donor independent, and able to achieve long term global impact.

Mariana is Adjunct Professor at Art Center College of Design, and was named TED Resident in 2018 and 2019 for her work in wildlife conservation and won the Emerging Scholar Award by Common Ground in 2020.

Previously to her career in wildlife conservation Mariana worked as Innovation Lead for the International Rescue Committee, was Global Design Fellow for IDEO.org where she worked on numerous projects across East Africa and Asia.

Mariana graduated as a product designer from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and has taught at USC Marshall School of Business and been a guest lecturer at Berkeley Haas School of Business, Stanford University, SVA, Parsons School of Design, and speaker at The North American Congress for Conservation Biology, TEDxYouth@Caltech and TED HQ in New York.

Awards & Exhibitions

• Art Center College of Design, 2021 Alumni Award
• TED Residency 2018 & 2019
• Smithsonian / Cooper-Hewitt Museum Exhibit, 2018
• Cumulus Mumbai 2015 Best Paper
• Core77 Best Service Design, 2016
• The Tech Awards: Young Innovator Award, 2012
• NASA, Jet Propulsion Lab Exhibit, 2012