About Us

Fresh Press is the only research lab at a university in North America focused on the testing and creation of papers and building materials that are viable for commercial use from agricultural residue fiber sourced from an on-campus sustainable farm. The research and community engagement ecology of the lab is akin to an amoeba, one that is active and changes with each new scholar or student who joins. 

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e. Ainsley headshot holding her art

  • Founder

    Eric is a sci-fi-loving, tree-hugging nerd from Michigan who is also an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Illinois. He co-founded Fresh Press in 2012 and has been running his 501(c)3 non-profit Re-nourish since 2006. Benson has published and lectured internationally on the importance of sustainable design. His work has also garnered numerous design awards and has been seen in notable venues like The Walker Art Center, the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the Hammer Museum, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and RISD.

  • Studio Manager

    Handmade paper is at the core of e’s artistic practice as a sculptor and occasional printmaker. e began her papermaking journey in June 2018 with a summer intensive residency at Pulp & Deckle in Portland, OR, where Jenn Woodward taught her the basics of using a critter beater to process egg cartons and cotton rag. Later that year, she relocated from Oregon to Illinois to pursue an MFA in Sculpture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. e worked extensively with miscanthus, big bluestem, corn, hemp, and rye, learning how to process these fibers and use a Reina from former studio manager Veronica Pham.

Hall of Fame

Steve Kostell

Steve Kostell is an intermedia artist & designer whose work explores the convergence of traditional and experimental techniques in print and digital media, resulting in hybrid forms. His work is grounded in material-based production and digital image processing, involving papermaking, printmaking, artist books, and multi-channel audio/video installations and interactive methods of social practice. Steve helped co-found Fresh Press in 2011.

Zack Grant

Zack is a Local Foods and Small Farms Extension Educator housed in Cook County, Unit 6.  Zack educates, conducts research, and provides technical assistance in small scale intensive and urban ag food production systems in the Chicagoland region and beyond; primarily delivered through a variety of platforms and experiential training, including the Master Urban Farmer Training Program. Zack was the first farmer we worked with.

Jeff Poss

Jeffery Poss has designed award-winning proposals for  residences,  memorials, pavilions, and  deployables. Commission and competition work has been published in numerous books, journals and magazines in print and online. Poss was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2010. He is the co-author of Space, Movement, and Light: The Architecture of Jack Sherman Baker, FAIA  (University of Illinois, 1997), and the author of Spaces of Serenity: Small Projects for Meditation and Contemplation (ORO Editions, 2015).

Megan Diddie

Megan Diddie is a Chicago-based artist working with drawing, animation, video, and paper-making. Her work explores relationships between human bodies, plants, landscapes, and built environments. Drawing is at the heart of her practice. For Diddie, drawing is a language used to work through ideas, curiosities, and messages from the unconscious. Many of these ideas come from a need to describe discomfort and anxiety through both representational and abstract forms. Megan was a studio manager at Fresh Press from 2013-2015.

Sophia Pipathsouk

Sophia is an experienced studio manager with a demonstrated history of working in the environmental and creative services industry. Skilled in Management, Marketing, Social Media, Advertising, Video, and Editing. Sophia was a studio manager at Fresh Press from 2015-2018.

Veronica Pham

Veronica is an artist, educator, and designer. She received her MFA in Design Studies from UW-Madison and her BFA in Painting from UIUC. She has a published article titled Moments of Chây: Ecological Knowledge of Traditional Papermaking in Việt Nam, in the Winter 2023 issue of Ecology and Paper in the Hand Papermaking magazine. She is also co-writer in an upcoming publication, Contributions of Ethnobiology a collaborative interdisciplinary manuscript, Hand Papermaking Traditions in Việt Nam. Veronica was a studio manager at Fresh Press from 2019-202.

Other contributors

Matt Turino

Matt Turino is the Farm Manager at the Sustainable Student Farm at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has been playing music since he was born. He started dancing a month before that. He has performed so many shows with so many groups that you wouldn't be able to list them all in one breath. In addition to driving the heart of the Lids he also owns a house, builds stuff, and eats his vegetables.
You can find more of his music on Bandcamp.

Mark Taylor

With a background in three-dimensional design, Associate Professor Taylor has worked in the fields of interior design, construction management, architecture, and scenic construction for the film industry. His experiences have taken him across the US, Sri Lanka, and Haiti. He was the architectural faculty lead for the University of Illinois Solar Decathlon projects in 2009 and 2011. He typically teaches and architectural design studios in both the undergraduate and graduate programs.

Jennifer Hain Teper

Jennifer Teper’s  research interests lie in the development of formal education pathways for art and cultural heritage conservators and understanding the historic and current barriers towards increasing racial and ethnic diversity within the profession. Jennifer is trained as a book and paper conservator and serves as Velde Professor and Head of the Preservation Services Unit at the University Library at UIUC. She is also adjunct teaching faculty for the ISchool. 

Sameh Tawfick

Dr. Twafick research interests lie in Actuators and Robotic Mechanisms, Carbon Nanomaterials: Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene, Additive Manufacturing of Polymeric and Composite Materials, Data-Driven Manufacturing and Machine Learning, Nanomechanics and Nanomanufacturing, and Solid Mechanics and Materials at the University of Illinois.

Quinn Morgan Ferris

Quinn is the Senior Conservator for Special Collections and Coordinator for Conservation Services at the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign, where she started as the Rare Book Conservator in 2016. Quinn's current position at the U of I includes conservation treatment and planning for Special Collections materials, student supervision and teaching, academic research initiatives, outreach and advocacy, and participation in grant writing and implementation.

Lindsay Chaney

Lindsay is a PhD student in the Materials Science & Engineering Department at Northwestern University. After receiving her B.S. in Chemistry from UCLA, she worked at the UCLA-based startup Supermetalix for two years before pursuing her doctorate. In the Hersam Group at Northwestern, she works on scalable and sustainable methods for producing electronic inks and substrates for printed electronic devices. She enjoys rock climbing, cycling, and playing with her cat Cheeks in her free time.

Yilun Zhou

Yilun Zhou is a doctoral student in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University in 2022. Yilun is interested in applying life cycle analysis (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) to mining and electric vehicles and also leads LCA on bio-graphene sensors. Yilun loves spending time with her two cats, Da Pang and Da Fu, and she also enjoys cooking and baking.

Anneka Vetter

Anneka is a chemist and artist who was instrumental as a research assistant at the University of Illinois Library on our Prairie Paper Project.